One hundred years ago this year, W. B. Yeats wrote his famous poem, The Second Coming, in which he lamented:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
At the time, in 1919, he had witnessed the disintegration of a Europe, once united by the blood ties of its royal families, now dissolved in the blood of an estimated 20 million dead, or presumed dead, in the Great War.
Yeats had also seen the rapid and brutal rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia, resulting in the execution of its own royal family there.
Back home, in his native Ireland, the 1916 Easter Rising had been crushed, followed by the bloodshed of the Anglo-Irish War – soon to be followed up by the even greater horrors of the Irish Civil War.
But further horrors would come: the rise of fascism, an even bloodier Second World War, the Holocaust, Stalin, Mao etc.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Despite the religious language, Yeats was an immoral mystic, and certainly not a Christian.
But it was obvious even to him that Western civilisation had lost it centre.
And now, things were falling apart.
Things fall apart
Today we are witnessing the ongoing, and increasingly rapid, demise of Western civilisation.
While thankful for the breathing space we have been afforded (at least, here in Australia) in the surprise result of our recent election, the “rough beast” continues to “slouch toward Bethlehem”. But the result Yeats foresaw was not Bethlehem but Mayhem.
Every year, the pro-abortion lobby becomes more strident and more morally bankrupt.
Now they argue their case for murdering a child in the womb with the dishonest slogan: “She deserves to be a choice”.
But she doesn’t get a choice; the killer, not the victim, gets to choose.
What sort of society gives the right to kill to killers, but no rights to the victim?
A few years ago W. C. Harris borrowed from Yeats’s lines and wrote a book, Slouching towards Gaytheism. In it he foreshadows the abandonment of religion altogether (even a so-called “Christianity” that seeks to accommodate homosexuality) and embracing the new gay atheism.
In another age this would have been written off as simply another work from the loony Left – until we remember what has happened in the last 20 years.
Before this millennium, there was not one nation on earth that condoned same sex marriage; only seven years ago no major political party in Australia supported it.
But one by one, nations in the West have fallen apart: now you are ostracised by the elite, and have a $4 million contract torn up if you speak out against homosexuality.
Once the centre folds anything goes.
Witness the increasingly bizarre claims of the gender identity lobby.
Even young children are being incited to queery their gender and identify themselves somewhere in the LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA alphabet. Devoid of the mature wisdom that comes with experience they are encouraged to follow their childish whims and consider undergoing gender modification.
This is child abuse.
It was G.K. Chesterton who wrote:
“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”
When the Centre is corrupt
When any society loses its centre, it will fall apart.
The West has lost its centre and is falling apart. This is not to say that the centre of Western civilisation was always sound. Just that once it had a centre.
A society may hold together as long as it has a centre – though for how long is hard to say if that centre is corrupt.
This is demonstrated in Chinua Achebe’s seminal work, Things Fall Apart.
(Yeats’s poem must be “the most thoroughly pillaged piece of literature in English.”)
In his book, Achebe tells the story of the 
disintegration of tribal society in a group of villages in Nigeria, as a result of the coming of Western civilisation, including missionaries and European administration. The centre of society was lost; things fell apart.
But the society he describes before the coming of the West was far from kind: wife beating, child sacrifice, lack of compassion, the dominance of the macho male, bondage to superstition, the fear of demons, were all features of that society.
The centre was not good. It’s just that it held it together.
A society can be held together for a while, while it has a centre.
Many societies, from the Roman Empire to Nazi Germany, have held together and maintained order for a time, around a centre.
But that does not mean the centre is good. Nor that the centre will last.
When the Centre is the cross
The only centre that will last, that can redeem fallen humanity and that will hold us together in a good way is the cross.
The cross is the centre the world needs.
The cross is the centre of the geography of the world
In the providence of God, the redemption of Mankind was accomplished at the geographical centre of the world.
God chose Golgotha, which lies at the boundary of East and West; and the boundary of North and South.
The cross is the centre of the history of the world
“When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son…” (Gal 4:4)
Ever since, the history of the world has been divided by this one, great event: BC and AD (“Before Christ” and “In the Year of the Lord”).
The cross is the centre of HIS-story in the world
His-story is God’s story. It is the story of God redeeming a fallen race, and restoring some to a right relationship with Him.
At the centre of that story is the cross.
In the cross of Christ I glory,
towering o’er the wrecks of time;
all the light of sacred story
gathers round its head sublime. (John Bowring)
There are only two stories in this world.
– One has a centre that holds firm, cf Dan 7:13-14.
– The other has no centre; or, if it does, it only holds for a time, then crumbles.
David F. Wells, in Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World, writes that there are “two diametrically opposed visions of life”:
In the one, there is no centre; in the other, there is and it is Christ.
In the one, life is but a succession of random events; in the other, life is lived out under the sovereign rule of Christ.
In the one, we are alone in the cosmos; in the other, we are not.
In the one, salvation is humanly managed; in the other, it is divinely given.
Then he astutely adds:
Christianity best flourishes when the sharpness of these opposing visions is preserved, and it becomes sickened when it is not.
The cross is the centre of MY story in the world
My world falls apart, apart from the cross.
I cannot live if I am not forgiven.
Through the cross, God the Father “has delivered [me] from the power of darkness and conveyed [me] into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom [I] have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col 1:13-14)
HEAVENLY FATHER,
Thou hast led me singing to the cross
where I fling down all my burdens and see them vanish,
where my mountains of guilt are levelled to a plain,
where my sins disappear, though they are the greatest that exist, and are more in number than the grains of fine sand…
At the cross there is free forgiveness for poor and meek ones, and ample blessings that last for ever…
In the midst of a world of pain it is a subject for praise in every place, a song on earth, an anthem in heaven, its love and virtue knowing no end.
. – from Today’s Devotional, Valley of Vision (Banner of Truth)
“God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Gal 6:14)
When the woes of life o’ertake me,
hopes deceive, and fears annoy,
never shall the cross forsake me.
Lo! it glows with peace and joy.
Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure,
by the cross are sanctified;
peace is there that knows no measure,
joys that through all time abide.
Things hold together
Western civilisation has lost its centre.
Though rarely ever truly Christian, it held together for a time by borrowing from a Christian form.
Now even that has disappeared and it is falling apart.
Why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.” (Psa 2:1-3)
But our God laughs:
He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure… (vv 4-5)
Far from being dismayed, God established a new centre in His appointed Messiah:
“I have set my King on My holy hill of Zion.”
“I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son; today I have begotten You’.” (vv 6-7)
God the Father has set His Christ on the throne:
He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church. (Eph 1:20-22)
Jesus Himself declares: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” (Matt 28:18)
God has appointed Christ to be the centre that holds all together: “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Col 1:17)
Any society can only ultimately hold together in Christ.
As David F. Wells writes:
Christ is the centre in which all created reality inheres and Christ is the centre and head of his Church. He is the one in whom our culture’s displacement of God is reversed and the one in whom the consequent alienation between people begins to be healed.
Since our only hope is in the cross of Christ, we are wise to be found in Him:
Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. (Psa 10-12)
“Kiss the Son” – either now; or, on the last day.
For:
God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow – of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth –
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:9-11)
Then comes the end, when [Christ] delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet…
Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor 15:24-25,28)