This Week's Story

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The 1960'S and 70's in the U.S. erupted with protests against racism, war, poverty, and hypocrisy in the pillars of American culture.

This Week’s Story relives American history and the Bible through brief inspiring stories presented on mp3 audio recordings and text for reading.

Hope and purpose build lives and nations. part two

Last week I shared memories of mine from the twentieth century, particularly the late 1940’s and 1950’s. World War II with its terrible death toll and destruction was over! Hope and new opportunities were increasing in several countries.

Many countries needed rebuilding. Many people grieved from the loss of family members, but the war was over! The United States particularly appeared to be a land of escape from war horrors. Then the 1960’s and 1970’s became center stage in the United States.

Its culture was rapidly changing. News often was of race riots, equality of opportunity for minorities, the government’s war on poverty in ghettoes, racial violence, political turmoil, voting rights, fair housing, strained integration of schools, and daily death totals announced by the press and printed in newspapers as the Vietnam War exploded into the American consciousness. Drug usage became a national problem. Popular music had many stylings. Some had little melody and emphasized beat in gigantic concerts.

Political protestors were on the streets in many big cities with

leaflets presenting their positions. Many of the black protestors were prominent in articulating their beliefs.

Assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy horrified the U.S. population. The country was deeply shaken by the deaths and asked: What did the violence reflect about who Americans were? What changes did Americans need to make?

The Jesus People Movement saw young adults protest mainline churches for having dogma and form without personal commitment. The young adults emphasized personal salvation based on belief in Jesus Christ who was accepted as God in the flesh and executed upon a cross. He was buried in a tomb, resurrected, and ascended to Heaven. Hundreds of worship songs were composed. Church music became more informal.

Centuries earlier Shakespeare wrote the play Macbeth. Its characters mirrored times of turmoil.

In the play Shakespeare created three witches who danced around a huge iron pot chanting, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair; hover through the fog and filthy air.”

The play Macbeth warned: Beware of people who are foul deceivers! Recognize people who are fair and misunderstood. More frightening, do not willingly become foul. Macbeth willingly steps into the pit he digs.

Macbeth becomes so depressed that he declares,

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifiying nothing. (from Act 5. Scene 5)

May Americans find opportunities to establish lives that signify hope and purpose for their country.