In many places around Australia there’s growing concern about increased youth crime. The Melbourne Age reported that youth crime in Victoria reached its highest level for a decade with children aged 14 to 17 being responsible for almost 19,000 criminal incidents in 2023. The Bureau of Statistics reports that in the same year the Australia-wide figure for criminal offences by 10 to 17 year-olds was 48,014.
It’s not unusual to hear calls for action by the government. One Sydney ‘Shock Jock’ called on the government to do something about the increasing youth violence. But that raises the million-dollar question: How can a government solve problems like young people invading homes to steal car keys and then taking off with the family car?
Or consider the bigger problem – because teenage violence isn’t our only social problem today. The statistics of family breakdown are equally frightening… so are the figures for youth suicide. And again, so often the cry goes up: “They ought to do something about it.” “They”, being the government. Maybe you’ve said the same thing yourself: why don’t they solve these problems? But again, how can a government fix broken families… how can it stop teenage suicide?
There’s an interesting story in the Bible that took place some 600 years before Christ. It involved a Jewish king called Josiah. The days of Josiah were not exactly the best of times. It was a period of immense international tension between major superpowers. There were also lots of difficulties in society. Bloodshed and violence were common. Superstition flourished. And people did horrible things in the name of religion. For example Josiah’s grandfather had sacrificed one of his own sons to his idol god.
When the Bible analyses what was wrong with society at the time of Josiah it makes two points.
First, there was a proliferation of false religions… all kinds of bizarre beliefs were promoted. It was English writer, G.K. Chesterton, who once pointed out that when people cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything. That was certainly the case in Josiah’s days: even the most absurd religions got a hearing. In Israel in 600BC tolerance was regarded as the most important value. It was a tolerant society… and when tolerance is the main value then anything goes. But we have problems when we begin to tolerate the intolerable. When young people are radicalised in the name of religion so that they commit acts of violence then it’s time to say, “Enough!”
Secondly, when the Bible analyses what was wrong with society in 600 B.C. it also mentions moral anarchy. The Ten Commandments had been relegated to the scrap heap. When we treat moral values with disdain then we become a troubled society. That was true in Josiah’s days and it is true in our own day. We cannot allow everyone to do what is right in their own eyes. That’s the quickest way to moral chaos and the kinds of problems we face today.
I’ll hazard a guess that few people today are familiar with the Ten Commandments. And many who are familiar with the Ten Commandments dismiss most of them as being irrelevant for our day and age. You shall not kill…? Okay, fair enough. But, “You shall not commit adultery…?” Let’s change that to “You shall not get caught.” That was precisely the situation in the days of king Josiah. Moral values were in short supply.
So what’s a government supposed to do about those two problems that lead to moral anarchy? How does it deal with the extreme tolerance that no longer teaches young people that our choices have consequences? How does it deal the social moral chaos that sees stabbings in a Bondi Shopping Mall?
The kings before Josiah were no help in solving the problem. They, in fact, led the way in tolerating both false religion and lawlessness. It became such a chaotic society that Josiah’s own father, Amon, was assassinated in his own palace.
Under king Josiah’s reign two things happened that turned society around – at least for a time. First there was a time of revival – a turning to God, stimulated by prophets such as Zephaniah. Second, there was a rediscovery of the Law of God that helped put society back on a moral footing. Those two things are still the remedy for our troubled society today: A turning to the God of the Bible and an embracing of His moral law.
John Westendorp