Why is Our World So Screwed Up?

The script for this video appears in the section below:

As we ponder our solar system, we’re staggered by the way it works with such unimaginable harmony and beauty. The sun’s gravity serves all the planets. Century after century that solar force keeps them circling  in their orderly orbits. And, from a great distance, that little planet called “earth” seems so well-behaved. Year by year, it moves in a stable, oval-shaped path around the sun, keeping its moon in place as well.

But . . . when we zoom in for a closer look, we discover all is not well on this planet we all call home. Yes, our world often gives us glimpses of beauty and goodness. But it seems that all the gravity in the universe cannot keep things as they should be. Let’s take a quick look at some examples of the trouble.

Poverty: virtually a quarter of earth’s people live on $5 or less a day. That’s not even $2,000 per year.

Theft: with traditional thievery—and now cyber-crime—stealing has created a multi-trillion-dollar global crisis.

Violence: In 2025, violence cost the world nearly $22 trillion dollars, or $2,657 for every person alive on earth.

Murder: each day around the world, more than 1200 people are murdered. That’s 52 each hour, almost one every second, around the clock.

Divorce: No one knows the global rate of divorce, but in the U.S., more than four out of ten first marriages end in a split.  

Disease: Estimates say that by 2030, the global cost of disease will total $47 trillion.

War: From 500 B.C. to the present, historians estimate that 570 million lives have been lost as a result of wars.

Arson: Each year, intentionally set fires cost between $1- and $2 billion, just in the United States alone.

With all this and more going wrong, we have to ask  the question: Why is our world so screwed up? People offer all kinds of explanations conditions here on earth. It’s POLITICS, say some. Those in power are corrupting everything. Others blame TECHNOLOGY. The machines are taking over—most recently AI. According to others, it’s GREED, that never-ending desire to grab more. Many compare the haves and have-notes and attribute the state of the world to INEQUALITY. Still others blame the “isms:” CAPITALISM, INDIVIDUALISM, COLLECTIVISM, and RACISM.

Many of these can be useful symptom descriptions, but none of them reaches deeply  enough to explain the “why” behind the disorder of planet earth.

That question about our screwed-up world may best be addressed with a story. Let’s say you decide to build a home. First, you look for, find, and buy a vacant building lot. Next, you hire an architect. After a couple of drafts and some revisions, you settle on this blueprint. Then comes the construction crew—carpenters, plumbers, electricians, drywallers, roofers, and so on.

Finally, the home you had dreamed of stands there complete. It’s just what you hoped for. But now for the surprise. You’ve built this home to house your son and his family. Because of your close relationship with him, you make your son more than just a tenant. You put him in charge as resident manager of your new house. Not only will he live in the house, he will act as your property manager over it, representing your interests on your behalf. And with that understanding, you hand him the keys.

For a time, things work just as you intended. But then, your son goes behind your back. He makes a shady deal. For an agreed-upon price, he sublets the maintenance of your wonderful house to an unscrupulous character. Your son has now come under the thumb of this lying, control freak. The transaction has devastating effects both on your relationship with your son as well as on the well-being of your beautiful house.

Your son—once so promising—has cut himself off from you. Those special, trustful times you used to share together are gone. His life is going to waste.

But there’s more. That beautiful house you spent so much care in creating? Well, it has come to ruin as well. Why is the house so screwed up? Because it lost its rightful property manager.  The wrong ruler now has the say-so over it.

 “Why is our world so screwed up?” Like your house, the world has a history of being under the say-so of the wrong property manager. Just before creating human beings, God said, “Let us make mankind in our image and let them rule over all the earth.” After making them, he said: “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and govern it.” In effect, God handed us—his image bearers—the keys to his earth.

As a first step in doing just that, Adam—in obedience go God—exercised say-so over the animals by naming them. But then an unscrupulous creature snaked his way onto God’s good earth. He smooth-talked these human beings into taking their orders from him rather than their Creator. By doing so, they handed the keys to God’s earth off to him. In short, the devil ended up acting as property-manager, the role God had originally given to his image-bearers. Those image-bearers became children of the devil. So the devil stole the say-so over the world. More than once, Jesus called him,  “the ruler of this world.”

But that same Jesus came to the rescue. Canceling out our sins through his death and resurrection, he made it possible for us to be born from above. As children of God, we can learn to live into our role, partnering with him in the rule of his earth.

Returning to our story: the wayward son has been forgiven, rehabilitated, and given say-so as originally intended. Now . . . at this present time we are—as Dallas Willard said—God’s apprentices, “in training for reigning.” Wherever God has given us say-so now—over our bodies, our families, in our work, in our communities—we are practicing for that larger ruling role in the age to come.

And then . . . in the age to come, as we read in Revelation 22:5, we  will  “reign for ever and ever.” Those God meant to rule his earth  with him will be back in charge. So there is a wonderful future and hope for the ruined house of our world.  As Paul puts it in Romans 8, “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God

After the Resurrection, don’t be surprised if the question changes into one of worshipful wonder: “How did it all get put so right again?”