William Wilberforce is best known as leading the charge to end slavery. He served in the government of England as a member to Parliament, starting in 1783. In 1797, he wrote A practical View of Real Christianity. The following quotes and excerpts come from a recent modernization of the text, completed in 2006 by Dr. Bob Beltz.
Man’s Fallen State
“It is my opinion that the majority of Christians overlook, deny or, at the very lease, minimize the problems of what it means to be a fallen human being. They might acknowledge that the world has always been filled with vice and wickedness. . .but even though the facts might be acknowledged, the source of the facts is often still denied. These failures are rationalized as small failures or periodic problems. Other explanations are given that fail to get to the heart of the matter. Human pride refuses to face the truth. Even the majority of professing Christians tend to think that the nature of humanity is basically good and is only thrown off course by the power of temptation. . .The Bible paints a much different pictures. The language of the Scripture is not for the faint of heart. It teaches that man is an apostate creature, fallen from his original innocence, degraded in his nature, depraved in his thinking, prone towards evil, not good, and impacted by sin to the very core of his being. (pp. 27-28)
Wilberforce goes on from there to point out the evidence is against us humans if someone wishes to propose that we are getting better. This issue has come up recently for myself. Often in the teaching of history, it is very easy for some to go back in time to blast previous generations for being terrible people. We teach as if those people “back then” were among the most evil, and in doing this teaching, the implication is that “of course we/I would never do those things.”
A classic example is the recent movie Avatar. While taking up a decidedly pro-environmentalists viewpoint on the world, the other clear aspect of James Cameron’s viewpoint is that the beautiful blue people are like the other noble native people’s from the past, like our Native Americans, who were so brutalized in the past. Someone asked me why I didn’t like the movie, or at least wasn’t ga-ga over it? My reply centered on this poorly focused idea that attempts to somehow shame us for actions taken 400+ years ago.
My reaction to the movie, to the notion of this supposed evil from the past, is that it ignores the fact that these actions happening in this culture clash are not limited to North American in the 1500-1800s period. Instead, it is the way of humans at all times and in all places. In other words, regardless of the hopes of some like Cameron who obviously assume that evolution really does happen, there is simply no evidence that the human has changed in any way relative to actions towards one another. Just a simple glance through the news in the past few months will highlight acts of murder, slavery, derision, anger, brutality, rape, incest and on and on. Throughout human history, the sheer weight of evidence is in support of the Biblical picture. Humans are broken creatures, broken under the weight of original sin, and 6000+ years later of recorded human history shows no real change.
How does that impact me?
- Well, for starters, it makes me somewhat skeptical when someone comes around offering a simple solution to my problem, especially if the solution comes from government. Furthermore, I know that medicine or science won’t fix my problems, since through history, so much of science and medicine have been used in collaboration with the broken human condition.
- It should also remind me to be patient with my fellow human. Often, as a professor, I and my peers find ourselves growing impatient with students. After hearing the same excuse or story for the 100th time, it’s hard to remind ourselves that each student before us is an individual.
- I remember that any advancement that I wish for (end of homelessness, end of modern slavery, return of civility, etc…) will take very hard work, and even then will probably only have incremental improvement.
- It must mean that if I wish for real change, both in me and in the world around me, that I must become willing to accept the fact that if the problem is beyond my human capability to fix, then the solution is also probably beyond human capability. I must then look for a solution that is beyond myself. That leads me clearly towards God, towards the spiritual.
As you move through your next weeks, why not take some time to accept the inevitable wisdom in Wilberforce’s words. Want to live well? Realize that power that is beyond us needs to be brought to bear in order to fix this problem that is beyond us.