Eddie Cross
Strange as it might seem, this in fact is what has happened in the past year. China has established itself as the industrial powerhouse of the world and understands completely that this would have been impossible without unlimited access to the historical savings of the older developed nations of the West. In addition, they have a clear understanding that China would never have been able to drag itself into the 21st century and to lift more than a billion people out of abject poverty into upper middle-income status without free access to global markets. It must stand as one of the most remarkable examples of development and growth in world history.
Both Russia and China are today strong defenders of family and moral values. It is much more difficult to get a divorce in either of these countries and they both lay a great deal of emphasis on sound marriages as the basis of the family. They also recognize that the family is the best place to raise the next generation. Both States have experimented with social engineering on a staggering scale in their historical pursuit of the vision of a communist socialist Society. Both now recognize that that was always a mirage.
By contrast, the historically Christian basis of western nations is literally disintegrating while we watch. The so called “Woke Society” has suddenly emerged as its successor and it is not pretty. Both Russia and China recognize these changes as being in their interests in the long term in the competition for global influence and power.
When the Soviet Union experimented with a generation of young Russians, by attempting to raise them outside of the traditional family, they found that the generation which the experiment produced had difficulty in making decisions and were not entrepreneurial in their view of life. They hurriedly reverted to supporting the traditional family of a husband and wife and to ensuring that future generations of Russians were raised within this conventional system.
If I was to classify the most destructive effect, in the long term, of the South African policy of Apartheid, it would be the destruction of the black family in that country. The past 25 years of post-transition South African leadership has not been able to repair the damage and the great majority of young black South Africans are growing up in a single parent or dysfunctional families. The consequences in the long term is difficult to imagine. In many ways it’s a sure recipe for failure.
To remedy these problems South Africa needs to recognize that its policies must seek to reestablish normal family life for the great majority. This means home ownership should take center stage with provision for the support of normal family life. Within the historical experience of South Africa, is the example of the Afrikaner community which was historically disadvantaged and even discriminated against and yet succeeded in lifting their people out of poverty and making the Afrikaner nation a driving force within the South African economy. I would not be surprised if we discovered that Afrikaner business was not dominant in the South Africa of today. Their impact, is in fact, being felt globally. At its heart the driving force of this remarkable community has been Calvinist values and strong family structures.
We need to understand that this world is all there is, and we have a responsibility to so manage our affairs that we leave the world in a better state than we found it in. Such an effort is multifaceted by its very nature. We have to manage human relations, our relationship with the natural world and see to it that our children and grandchildren are given the best possible start in life.
For me this process begins in the family, by family I mean a man and a woman who love each other and commit themselves to each other in the task of creating a home and raising the children that are the natural consequences of their relationship. It means a certain hierarchy within the family and requires laying down guidelines for your children which establishes in them a clear understanding of right from wrong and the need for discipline.
The so called Woke Society, denies all these principles. It breaks down the distinction between men and women and accepts even transgender relationships and relationships which are totally unnatural and in defiance of historically established norms and values. There will be consequences.
History teaches us that none of us live on an island and can really thrive unless we pay attention to what is going on elsewhere in the world. Just imagine being born in the first quarter of the last century and watching Germany and Japan prepare themselves to launch their global effort to dominate the 20th century. The consequence was a World War, which killed a whole generation and absorbed massive amounts of the accumulated wealth of the world. All of this was based on a false view of humanity and of Society.
We cannot be complacent when we see the near total breakdown of moral and family values in Europe and the United States. To watch the European Union threatening Poland with sanctions because they are trying to maintain traditional Christian and family values in their society. They are being accused of discrimination and human rights violations when in fact all they are seeking to do is to maintain the Christian basis of their Society, which has served them so well historically.
My granddaughter is working and studying in the United Kingdom and is mixing with young, educated people who have no understanding whatsoever of a belief in God or even its relevance to their own lives. For those of us who live in Africa, such an environment seems impossible to understand. No African would deny the existence of God and the importance of this fact in the everyday lives of the people. Perhaps it’s because we live closer to primeval reality, perhaps it’s because we are not protected by any historical Christian background from the spiritual forces that exist everywhere just beneath the surface.
If it is true that we are a product of evolution, that somehow in the distant past we emerged from a mud puddle and over the millennia, evolved into something that resembles ourselves today. Then certainly there are no fundamental values and God is irrelevant to our existence and we really are in charge. We can make up our own rules and live according to these dictates simply based on popular consensus.
Such a hypothesis is, of course, complete nonsense. As a friend of mine whose life is centered around mathematics, once explained to me, there has not been enough time in all of history for such an evolutionary process to have produced anything like what we see around us in the physical world today. Even a cursory examination of the human body let alone the rest of creation will quickly establish the existence of design and if there is design there must be an architect, and He must have had a clear understanding of what He was doing. The wonder of such a premise, as the basis of life, is that it gives meaning and significance to all of us. But at the same time, it prescribes, how we should all live.
Post published in: Featured