On Friday April 22, 2022 I saw a young adult tweet “Today I’m celebrating Earth Day with unprecedented climate anxiety”. Days prior Tiktok videos of protesting scientists were trending as they drew attention to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The stark warning: catastrophic climate events threaten our future unless a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions occurs by 2025. Their message highlights the urgency of a looming climate and ecological crisis.
With fast fading optimism in world leaders to enact change, younger generations are embracing nihilistic philosophy in droves. “It’s hard not to hate humanity and hold a bleak outlook when you see how morally corrupt we are and how much damage we are doing to our planet” remarked one contributor to the /nihilism subreddit; whose members grew by 840000 in the past 2 years. Other posts seem to be paraphrased from the Biblical book Ecclesiates, (written before 931 BC) questioning the point of doing right when injustice prevails.
In 1884 German philosopher Nietzsche warned the era of Enlightenment would render God dead and without this cornerstone of morality and order he predicted society’s spiral into catatonic nihilism. But here we are over a century later and God is far from dead. To the eleventh hour, fear and grief held by so many, precious hope in Jesus can still be found. The invitation extended by His nail pierced hands to exchange apathy for appreciation of the miracle of life, to discover individual value and purpose that is eternal. We know our God has been faithful in keeping His promises throughout human history and will follow through on His declaration to recover and reunite with His children, restore justice and remake the world. (Read about it in Revelation Chapters 21 & 22)
