Arc of the Moral Universe?

By Tom Gilbreath

In 1853, an abolitionist minister named Theodore Parker said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The saying took on new life and popularity when Martin Luther King Jr. began quoting it in the 1960s. Since then, that declaration has become a pillar of an unacknowledged but very real secular religion.

It’s surprising that so many churches, denominations, and faith leaders have embraced that religion. Their cheerful, man-pleasing faith says that people are basically good and getting better – more enlightened all the time. They believe that one day their descendants will turn this world into a perfect utopia to which Jesus may (or may not) at last return. Some of these people add to the spiritual sound of their beliefs using Christianese words like “millennium.”

Some think such a utopia can be built with real speed. In his famous “Four Freedoms” speech, Franklin Roosevelt spoke of an entire world with freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. He said, “That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.”

FDR said that as part of his 1941 State of the Union Address. It would be difficult to find someone today who listened to that long-ago speech and still expects to see a world without want or fear in his or her lifetime. Even after 84 years, his words seem like a “vision of a distant millennium,” and nothing like the world we know.

But that “distant millennium” may not be so distant after all. The arc of history really will, at some point, bend toward justice. Instead of a long arc, however, the bend toward justice will be sudden, extreme, and overwhelming.

To many people, justice means fairness. And our institutions should be as fair as we can make them. But real justice belongs to God. It is good, awesome, and, in some senses of the word, terrible. We should be eternally thankful that He also offers us grace. John 1:17 says, “The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

Humanity is fallen from the state in which God created us. We are infected with sin, but the existence of the infection doesn’t take away the fact that each sin is a choice. We are sinners because we sin, and we sin because we are sinners. We are not “good and getting better.” Moral precepts shift from generation to generation. Such shifts reflect human lostness, not growing enlightenment.

Martin Luther King was right in his call for fairness when he stood on truth revealed in God’s Word. He was right when he was on God’s side. But unless anchored to God, even words like justice change their meaning with the tides of whim and fashion.

Humanity is not getting better, but it is about to. I’m convinced that Christ will return soon because He must. On too many fronts, the world is headed for catastrophe. The Lord must step in. But don’t expect the moral arc to be long and slow. Expect the sudden rapture of the Church. Then earth will not seem to move toward goodness and enlightenment, but toward Antichrist and catastrophe. Happily, that won’t last long. It will end with Jesus returning to rule and reign.