The Decade From Hell?

So proclaimed the cover story of Time magazine!  We’re at the end of the first decade of the 2000s.  So the press and social pendants are reflecting on the past decade.  Well, TIME Magazine has called the first decade of the 2000s, from 2000-2009, the decade from Hell.  We have just lived through the decade from Hell!  Here’s what they say:

Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post–World War II era. We’re still weeks away from the end of ’09, but it’s not too early to pass judgment. Call it the Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade. Call it whatever you want — just give thanks that it is nearly over.

In a related story, Billboard magazine named Daniel Powter’s hit song from 2006, “Bad Day,” as the decade’s top one-hit wonder!

Of course, there have been other suggestions:  “Era of Misplaced Anxiety,”  “Decade of Disruptions,” and the “Decade of the Unthinkable.”  I just want to share what I like and don’t like about Time’s designation, “The Decade from Hell.”

On the one hand there is something to be said for it.  There certainly are a host of hellish memories:  Of course there was the definitive event, 9/11; the Enron Scandal, which proved to be simply a tip of the iceberg in a decade of financial corruption; two fronts on the war against terrorism; and then there was Abu Ghraib, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Bernie Madoff, the financial collapse and ensuing recession, and many other tragedies.  While these are certainly hellish, of course they are nothing in comparison with what the book of Revelation outlines for us.  Yet I remember so well how President Reagan was mocked by the press for calling the atheistic Soviet Union, which had murdered millions of its own citizens, “an evil empire.”  And more lately President Bush was snickered at for referring to three murderous regimes as “an axis of evil.”  Now the press has decided that there really is a moral base from which we can determine what is good and what is evil, what is heavenly and what is hellish.  In that sense I rejoice with the designation, “The Decade from Hell.”

But the Bible teaches a wonderful doctrine called Providence.  This biblical value says that God is with us always, providing for us and caring for us.  The Bible’s teaching about the future is complicated and deeply nuanced to be sure, but ultimately the message is that the victory over evil has been secured by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.  That means that trouble will never have the last word in this world.  Evil will rear its ugly head, but it will never ultimately triumph.  As we saw last Sunday, the Christmas message is this:  “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it”  (John 1:5).  We may go through some hellish realities and some very dark valleys.  But for those who love the Lord, on the other side all is light, all is joy.