Deep Depravity and a Biblical Worldview of Life

Culture News

on October 1, 2023

Featured in Answers Magazine

On June 18, five men squeezed inside the 22-foot-long (6.7 m) submersible Titan. Their expedition was intended to descend 12,500 feet (3.8 km) to view the wreck of the Titanic, an ocean liner that sank in 1912. A little over an hour and a half after diving, the Titan went radio silent.

After four days of rescue operations, the US Coast Guard concluded that the vessel had imploded not long after its last transmission, instantly killing all five passengers.

During those four days, as the media followed the rescue attempt, social media revealed itself to be a place as harsh and unforgiving as the ocean’s depths. Many people expressed unwillingness to pity the ultra-wealthy individuals who paid $250,000 for the risky ride. Influencers joked about searching the seas for a billionaire’s floating wallet. One TikTok user opined, “We might only have another 30 hours or so of being able to make fun of the people on the submarine.”

Still others saw a prime opportunity to further social agendas, highlighting income inequality and questioning why the funds invested in this rescue were not invested in other crises. But most of the comparisons pointed to another recent maritime tragedy.

A few days before the submersible disappeared, a fishing vessel carrying 750 Libyan migrants sank off the coast of Greece, killing hundreds of passengers. This tragedy was overshadowed by reports on the missing Titan.

Both tragedies raise complex issues that require contemplation and action. But the scenarios also provide space for evaluating our worldview of life. Those without a biblical worldview judged which lives do and do not hold value and joked about the Titan passengers’ demise.

Regarding these unsettling responses, Jessica Gelt wrote in a Los Angeles Times commentary, “Like a digital Tower of Babel, social media is evolving into an increasingly ugly and chaotic space—a real-time repository for our worst impulses, uninspired musings, . . . and ill-formed thoughts that should be kept to ourselves.”

We know from Scripture that humanity’s heart is desperately wicked. Social media merely gives a platform for that depravity to manifest. But while the world screams chaos and disunity, God calls his children to speak a different language: to spread peace among the disorder, to share the hope of the gospel in the face of mankind’s evil musings, and to value all human life as being made in the image of the Creator (Genesis 1:26–27).