Are things really worse than 100 years ago?

I was thinking this week about all of the people who complain about how bad our culture is today. We know the stats and have seen the degradation of our society. There is always a large part of the country thinking negatively and critically about the condition of society. The spiraling changes are significant:

-media (television, radio, print, digital, and internet revolution)


-music and entertainment industry (lessening values in programming and loss of control by the networks)
-athletic and sports industry (materialism and selfishness)
-modernist to post-modern worldview shift (from an enlightenment mind that had a humanist and moral template ready to solve human and world issues to no universal code of right and wrong way of guiding society)

But, is there really a difference between today's culture and 100 years ago? Here are headlines from the 1900’s to the 1930’s newspapers:

Bank Manager Found Guilty of Embezzlement”
“Mass Killer Charged”
“20 Dead in Theatre Collapse”
“President Appoints First Jewish Justice to Court”
“Marijuana Crazed Youth Kills Fellow Students”
“New Housing Problems on Horizon”
“Crowd Vents Anger by Destroying property”
“Racial Riots Break Out in White Neighborhood”
“Teens Growing up too Quickly”

Are things really any different? Maybe more prevalent. But, certainly not more severe. Listen, human nature in the 1st century or the 21st century is human nature. And our propensity for evil is as strong as ever. Sin will not let up. And the scriptures say it will increase. But, what is more important is that we see our desire for holiness increase.  

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