“Paul at least was not hopeful that things would get better as human history moved along. He was not a believer in progress as it has been humanly understood. In what seems to have been his last letter, perhaps the very last thing he wrote, he warned Timothy that in the last days difficult times will come. “For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power.” One could be forgiven for thinking that this certainly looks like now. Who does not recognize in these words the prevailing tone and texture of contemporary life….In fact this has been the end stage of every successful human society that has arisen on earth.”