Violence!​—A Growing Threat to You

Looking down the barrel of a gun held by an obviously jittery mugger, you need no one to convince you that today’s growing violence is a real threat to YOU! Your heart pounds! Nervous perspiration flows freely! In a state of near panic, you wonder if you will get out of this situation alive. That cold, unfeeling gun barrel promises no mercy​—neither does the icy stare of the gunman! In a most forceful, jarring way the latest statistics on mounting violence have come home to YOU!

ARE you not glad that you are merely reading about the scene described above? Of course, it is hoped that you will never actually have such an experience, and, to be sure, it does no good to be in constant dread of such a possibility. At the same time, it would be foolhardy to close your eyes to what is happening.

As an informed person you may readily admit that we are living in violent times. Still, you may not be too concerned about it as long as you yourself are not looking down a gun barrel. Yet your real chances of being confronted with an act of violence are not to be ignored.a On the streets and in other public places now in many lands there is an ever-present threat of rape and muggings. Political and labor unrest are prone to burst into violence. And there are the potentially explosive (although perhaps well-meant) protest marches, as well as the most senseless mayhem of all​—unpredictable terrorism.

But that is not all. In the home, rampant violence against family members literally does bring it home to you. A Toronto Star article, under the subheading “Violence increasing,” reports that in Canada “about 490,000 wives are battered each year.” And in the United States annually two to six million wives are beaten and half a million elderly citizens are subjected to maltreatment by their own relatives. In that same land, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect claims that “the actual number of children abused and neglected annually . . . is at least 1,000,000.” Thus, these days, “you are more likely to get killed, injured or physically attacked in your home by someone you are related to, than in any other social context,” says a sociologist.

When you add to the above the continually increasing amount of violence perpetrated by fans and players alike at sports events, the premeditated rise of it in TV programs, movies and videocassettes, along with the age-old violence of war and revolutions, you wonder if the world has not indeed gone mad. It raises the questions: Why are our times so violent? Was it always this way? Or, rather, is there something of special significance in what we see? And is there any way to escape for good the madness of this age of violence?

The following article is designed to answer these questions and to point to something better. It is our hope that it will aid you in gaining an informed and balanced view of this growing threat.

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