The 70th anniversary of the end of World
War II in Europe came and went in May with relatively little fanfare.
Perhaps the milestone passed quietly because fewer people
personally remember the largest armed conflict in human history. The last U.S.
president to serve in the military during World War II, George H.W. Bush, now
90, left office more than 20 years ago. Barack Obama wasn’t born until 16 years
after the war ended. Of the 16 million veterans who helped win the war — and
lift America out of the Great Depression and into global leadership — fewer
than 1 million are still alive. They are dying at a rate of nearly 500 per day.
But we all live with the consequences of World War II, whether we
realize it or not. It forged the modern world in fire and blood along with its
horrific predecessor, World War I. The “Great War” of 1914-18 destroyed old
orders and empires, set the stage for revolutions and economic upheaval and led
to far greater devastation two decades later. Before World War II ended in
1945, more than 60 million people had died, an average of 27,000 per day. Many
of them were civilians caught up in the fighting — or deliberately massacred.
“Within the vast compass of the struggle, some individuals scaled
summits of courage and nobility, while others plumbed depths of evil, in a
fashion that compels the awe of posterity,” writes World War II historian Max
Hastings. “Among citizens of modern democracies to whom serious hardship and
collective peril are unknown, the tribulations that hundreds of millions
endured between 1939 and 1945 are almost beyond comprehension.”
For all its suffering, however, World War II unleashed economic
energies that would lift entire nations from poverty to prosperity in the
postwar era. It ushered in a new age of technological and scientific progress.
It hastened the end of European colonialism. It sparked a Cold War with Soviet
communism that the West ultimately would win, spreading political freedom far
and wide.
And it opened vast areas of the globe — especially in Asia — to
the Christian gospel. Western missionaries streamed into ravaged countries
after the war, bringing help and hope. The disciples they made helped turn
Christianity into a truly global movement. Its expansion has continued in the
generations since, bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to new areas of
Africa and Asia, to the post-communist world, to previously unreached peoples.
Postwar chaos eventually gave way to order and development in many
parts of the world. But it’s become increasingly clear that the era of relative
global stability that followed the war — albeit guaranteed for long periods by
the weapons of superpowers — has come to an end.
“To put it simply, a vast swath of the Eurasian landmass
(understood to be Europe and Asia together) is in political, military and
economic disarray,” says George Friedman, chairman of the Stratfor global
intelligence analysis agency. “Europe and China are struggling with the
consequences of the 2008 [global economic] crisis, which left not only economic
but institutional challenges. Russia is undergoing a geopolitical crisis in
Ukraine and an economic problem at home. The Arab world, from the Levant to
Iran, from the Turkish border through the Arabian Peninsula, is embroiled in
politically destabilizing warfare. The Western Hemisphere is relatively stable,
as is the Asian Archipelago. But Eurasia is destabilizing in multiple
dimensions.”
In Friedman’s view, forces have re-emerged that the old postwar
order cannot control.
“After every systemic war, there is an illusion that the
victorious coalition will continue to be cohesive and govern as effectively as
it fought,” he observes. “After World War I, the Allies (absent the United
States) created the League of Nations. After World War II, it was the United
Nations. After the Cold War ended, it was assumed that the United Nations,
NATO, IMF, World Bank and other multinational institutions could manage the
global system. In each case, the victorious powers sought to use wartime
alliance structures to manage the postwar world. In each case, they failed,
because the thing that bound them together — the enemy — no longer existed.
Therefore, the institutions became powerless and the illusion of unity
dissolved. This is what has happened here.”
The only thing that seems certain is uncertainty. Will Europe
collapse as an economic and social entity? Will the Middle East descend into
all-out regional war? Will a new Cold War break out between East and West?
History has shown that such times are risky for the church, but
productive for God’s mission. Risky, because Christians will face increasing
persecution as societies crumble, and increasing danger as they take the gospel
worldwide. Productive, because people seek truth when everything else they have
relied upon falls away.
The chaotic period during and after World War II, when the world
Christian movement truly went global, is a case in point.
No comments:
Post a Comment