Billy Graham, observing a world where marriage is not honored, abortion is accepted and child abuse is a national plague, famously said, “If God doesn’t intervene soon, He’s going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.” God’s intervention nowadays is not the dramatic raining down of fire and brimstone but rather the call to repentance on the model of Job preaching to the Ninevites. The book goes on “the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.” That is what will save our society as well. Not some global change in society but each individual learning to live with more charity, to practice forgiveness more readily and to extend justice more vigorously.
