I’m finally ready to type up my review of Curtain by Agatha Christie, the story of Hercule Poirot’s last case. It might seem kind of an odd thing to publish in a magazine devoted to Christianity, but I think it’s pertinent.
Here’s what I find so interesting. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was written almost exactly 100 years before Curtain; and in the interval between the two, the Christian culture of Britain and the other Western countries changed so much as to be almost unrecognizable. In what way did it change, and how did it happen?
Sort of a challenge.
Well, here goes–
That’s actually a very good question. I do hope you’ll share your conclusions with us.
Oh, I will, somehow. It’s a very long article, for me–some 2,500 words. Took me two hours just to type it, and I’m a fast typist. And now I’m bushed.
Maybe a nice cigar, some dinner and a nap . . .
Just a thought: Two World Wars back to back seems to have caused people to lose faith in a merciful God. Humanism was glad to fill the void with man being the measure of all things. Instead of liberty being found in obedience to God’s law, man sought liberty outside of it – bad choice.
Really, though, the rot set in long before WWI. I would take Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” as the starting point.
I agree about Darwin, but I’d add Marx and Freud as well — all treating the human creature as a programmable accident.
The 19th century has a lot to answer for.
I agree that the two great wars, fought mostly in the eastern hemisphere, had a huge effect, but I believe they were the result of moral decay. Darwin, Marx, Freud and any number of humanist influences opened the door.
Surely both those wars killed any number of people who might have helped stem some of the folly. It’s a pity Adolf Hitler lived through World War I, despite being gassed. Nor can it be disputed by the bloodbath of World War I bred the British pacifism that led to World War II.
But the worst aspects of the culture rot were already firmly in place before a shot was fired.