14th January 2026

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

W. B. Yeats’ words, penned in the turmoil following the 1914-18 conflict and war in Ireland, ring tragically true today. Thanks to the go-it-alone projects of Presidents Trump and Putin (and others) with their abject disregard of the hard-won rules of international order and engagement, and many international institutions, we seem to be back in the jungle where might is right and the devil take the hindmost. Well might we say with the Psalmist, ‘If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?’ (Ps. 11.3). Yet the Psalmist goes on to declare that God is in his holy temple and is examining humankind and their actions. Naïve?

God’s righteous purpose is not ultimately dependent on how the rules are kept or not kept. It is built into the fabric of the world as created by him. Paul states, ‘In Christ all things in heaven and on earth were created, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him’ (Colossians 1.16). Those who disregard how the world is created, reflecting the togetherness of God, as though they can do what they like with it for their self-centred ambitions, will not finally succeed. They will sooner or later be up against not just the best human rules, but with the reality of God and of all peoples. An austere hope? Maybe, but certainly not despair.

Keith Clements