Is the World Getting Better or Worse?
Reflecting on the state of our planet
Photo by NASA on Unsplash
(Note: I had another piece planned for this week, but due to events that took place over the weekend, I decided to change gears a bit and cover a different topic—though it’s one I had already been pondering writing about in the future anyway.)
Another week, another mass shooting in America.
As you’re no doubt well-aware, an 18-year-old kid (can I call him that?) went into a grocery store in Buffalo and mowed down 13 persons (11 of whom were Black), leaving 10 dead, and broadcasting it on social media. It sickens and saddens me. My stomach churns.
There are lots of questions that come in the wake of yet another senseless rampage—questions about gun control, racism, and the political environment in America. I think there is a time and a place to reflect on and deal with all of those.
But what perhaps strikes me the most in response to this awful event is one that I sort of hinted at in my piece last week: is the world getting better, or is it getting worse?
If you’re reading this and you’re a conservative Christian, in particular, the answer is probably obvious to you: it’s getting worse. And it would be hard to argue with such a claim. In a world marked by seemingly increased mass shootings; the invasion of one sovereign, civilized nation by another supposedly-civilized nation; a world marked by a pandemic that refuses to go away—these are just a few snapshots into the inevitable demise of a world that can only be rescued by God.
I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine a few years ago who was deconstructing his faith. He posed this very question to me: is the world getting better, or is it getting worse? He cited the common talking points of conservative Christians, which bore great similarity to what I described above, but then asked me: do you think members of the LGBT community feel like the world is better or worse for them than it was 100 years ago? His point was well-taken. Whatever your views are on sexuality, most members of the LGBT community likely feel that life is safer—and better—than it was for them a century ago.
I also read a book a little while later, along with my book club, that tackled a similar point. In Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, Hans Rosling argues that, despite our assumptions, the world is actually doing a lot better than we think. He cites poverty levels (which have decreased dramatically), literacy rates (which have increased dramatically), and other similar realities that point to the fact that, even in places like the “Global South,” life is a lot better than it was, say, 100 years ago.
To some degree, it’s hard to argue with such a perspective. Especially as it relates to advancements in technology, advancements in medical care, advancements in knowledge in general, the world is a better place.
I mean, simply put: would you rather live in 2022 or 1922?
For one, your life expectancy, at least here in America, would be a full two decades longer than it was 100 years ago. And mass-shootings notwithstanding, it seems to me that society enjoys a lot more stability, safety, and “law and order” than a century ago.
Some will argue, of course, that—never mind improvements in technology—the world is characterized by significant moral decline. Some Christians will point to the increasing acceptance of “aberrant” sexual “lifestyles,” the legalization of substances like marijuana, and the proliferation of the porn industry as telltale signs that the world is spinning out of control morally. These concerns are then often leveraged for political purposes, especially here in America, as Christians pine for the sort of Leave It to Beaver “Golden Age” when divorce rates were low, there was no “gay agenda” being pushed in the media, and abortion wasn’t legally and readily available.
I get these concerns and agree with many of them.
But it seems like even the moral record is perhaps a little more ambiguous. After all, it’s now illegal to own other human beings in most countries—something that couldn’t be said 200 years ago. That seems to be progress. Here in America, it’s now also illegal to deny service to someone on the basis of race, religion, or gender. Again, that seems to be progress.
Similarly, despite what some may feel, we are a lot more aware of and have less tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse. Say what you will about the #metoo movement, but I view it as a net-gain, where, in theory, women don’t have to tolerate inappropriate sexual behavior from others to the degree they did 100 or 50 or even 10 years ago. This, again, to me, seems like moral progress.
We also are more aware of and have less tolerance for religious abuse—sexual and otherwise. Various clergy abuse scandals, in the Catholic Church, in the Southern Baptist Convention, reflect moral progress when it comes to our attitude about issues that have likely been going on for centuries, but were always tolerated. Again, this seems to be moral progress.
I could cite other examples, but I trust you get the point. For every example we could point to that seems to indicate moral decline, there are others we could point to that seem to reflect moral advancement.
So what am I saying? Is the world getting better, or is it getting worse?
I’ll give you the same answer I gave to my friend when he asked me a few years ago: yes.
How’s that for being non-committal and playing both sides?
While our answer to the question, as I alluded to last week, may have as much to do with the glasses through which we see the world—be they premillennial or postmillennial or amillennial glasses—I think what’s going on is that we’re seeing a maturing of people into and out of love.
What I mean is that it seems like love and hate are increasingly standing in sharper relief—the light is getting lighter and the dark is getting darker. These things are happening simultaneously—so on the one hand, the world is coming to greater revelations and insights into love, and aligning to greater degrees with it; but also, in response to that deepening love, aligning to greater degrees with anti-love.
I share this perspective partly as a result of simple observation—which admittedly may be way off—and partly due to what I see also in Scripture, specifically in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 14, John describes—what I understand to be—two classes of people right before earth’s final days, and he notes how both classes have “ripened.” One of the groups is harvested and lives eternally; the other, represented by grapes, is harvested and thrown into the “great winepress of the wrath of God” (Revelation 14:19).
The point here is that both groups are only harvested when they reach a certain level of “ripeness,” seemingly reflecting a maturing of their moral and spiritual state—both positively and negatively. One group has been cemented in love; another group has been cemented in hatred, pride, and selfishness.
I will not at all attempt to identify who makes what group. It’s not that one group is Republicans and the other group is Democrats; it’s not that one group is Christians and the other group is atheists. And contrary to what some in my faith-community are inclined to say, I’m not willing to even reduce it simply to the idea that one group is Sabbath-keepers and the other is not.
At the risk of feeding into binary, us vs. them-ism, all I am willing to wager on is that one group is going deeper in their understanding of and commitment to love, and the other group is maturing in their devolution away from love—which may mean that seemingly “godless” atheists who nevertheless have a deep commitment to justice, mercy, and love are in the former group while overt and self-proclaimed God-followers may be in the latter group. Again, I offer this at the risk of furthering a deepening polarization the world seems to be characterized by.
The bottom line is that I am willing to split the difference and acknowledge that, on the one hand, the world is seemingly making significant progress—technologically, intellectually, and yes, even morally. On the other hand, it seems that it is also getting worse—environmentally (climate change, anyone?), morally, spiritually, and emotionally (I didn’t even here cite how rates of depression and anxiety are sky-rocketing, though that could also arguably be due to the fact that we have advanced in our understanding of emotional health and we now have language with which to describe what we’ve always felt but could never articulate).
As for me, I hope and pray and commit myself to being a part of the progress in the world—of deepening my understanding of and commitment to love.
Shawn is a pastor in Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil student at the University of Oxford (what they call a PhD), focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.