The End of the World as We Know It

While in Bungoma, Mike was online and discovered that there has been a California law passed mandating the teaching of gay history in schools. First of all, what gay history? Despite the fact that I have a significant bias on the issue, I can say this without much bias at all: there really just isn't that much gay history to teach. To attribute homosexuality to any number of major historical figures who may have actually been gay (as I suspect one who plans to teach gay history must do) is little more than endorsing poorly documented heresay and trivial oral tradition. Nearly all of the noteworthy proven homosexuals have lived in the past century, and in most cases, their contributions to the historical fabric have had little to do with their homosexuality. To spend extra time studying them simply because of their sexual orientation is just robbing time from other figures of greater importance, all things considered.

Over the past few days, Mike and I have had numerous conversations about the cultural differences between Kenya and the USA, which nearly always lead to discussions of the deterioration of American culture, and that of the West on the whole. Several of the pastors at the conference reprimanded us - not without cause - for our lackadaisical commitment to commitment, that is, to the sanctity of marriage. To think that two years ago, I was in Rwanda watching Ed provide a marriage training seminar, when we have as much to learn from Africans about fidelity as they have to learn from us.

Faustin observed that moral decline always precedes socio-economic decline and political dominance. It's a theory that holds true throughout history. We've been seeing a moral decline for decades, why are we surprised that our economy is swirling the toilet bowl? If we're really teaching history properly, we would note the connection between the two. Instead, we're planning to celebrate moral decline in history class.

Chesterton proposes that civilization leads to barbarism, just as barbarism leads to civilization. I imagine that the ancient Romans felt some sort of terrible doom impending as their great civilization came to an end. Until the generation of Romans who lived through the fall of their empire, no Roman knew what the collapse of an empire would look like, feel like, smell like. In history books, it seems so abrupt, as though it had happened overnight. We read through the several chapters about the Roman empire, and then we turn the page, and the next chapter is about someone else. No more Rome. Of course, common sense tells us that the fall didn't happen so quickly, and certainly it must have been earth-shattering for those Romans living during that time. Their ancestors had known only prosperity for hundreds of years. Until the collapse began, they had no reason to expect it was coming, and no real reason - apart from the second law of thermodynamics (which they were probably unfamiliar with) - that it should ever come. Perhaps we're on the brink of an empire collapse now. Why would America anticipate or expect to fall? Yet I think many of us are beginning to have a feeling that must have been similar to that felt by those Romans so long ago.

For those Romans who were believers, they must have expected the Lord's return to come very soon. Just as many have expected and even predicted since He left. Arrogance is astonishing. Citizens of world powers always seem to think that the end of their empire must herald the apocalypse. Surely no nation could ever be greater than ours, so if this is the end of us, it must also be the end of everything. Just because we are a powerful and prosperous nation does not mean that our certain eventual fall will coincide with the end of the world. Just the end of the world as we know it.

On another note, the world as I know it is coming to an end this afternoon, with the arrival of the team from Granada.