The Blindness of Our Age: From Boardrooms to Living Rooms

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We live in a time when the very air tastes of despair. From the cubicle to the kitchen table, from headlines splashed in red ink to pulpits that echo with shallow noise, the pillars that once held our society upright are rotting from within. This is not a polite essay—it is a cry, a trumpet blast, a warning. I write not as a spectator but as one who has groaned under the weight of Babylon’s chains. If you’ve ever stared at the world and felt a sickness in your bones, then you already know the truth: something has gone terribly wrong.

In the modern workplace, leaders often stay hidden, content to guard titles while avoiding the weight of responsibility. Instead of vision, there is silence. Instead of shepherding, there is neglect. Men and women scratch for their own comfort, circling their wagons, protecting their turf while the greater mission burns to ashes.

At home, the battle followed. Across the table sat a father, bound in blindness. The struggle was not with him but with the shadow that gripped him—the ideology, the deception, the veil. Conversations ended in weariness, as though one had been boxing the wind.

And suddenly the veil was lifted: this was not just one company. This was not just one father. This was the spirit of the age. From boardrooms to living rooms, from city halls to church pews, humanity gropes in the dark, chasing selfish gain while the world heaves beneath the weight of its corruption.

Paul spoke it first: “The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8:22). That groaning reverberates in every bone.

The blindness is not an isolated sickness—it is the bloodstream of our culture.

• Corporations worship profit at the altar of quarterly reports. Men become cogs, women become numbers, loyalty is mocked, and legacy is discarded. Enron’s collapse, Wells Fargo’s fabricated accounts—just signposts of a deeper rot.
• Governments do not serve the people; they gorge themselves while the poor starve. Justice is auctioned off to the highest bidder, and truth is twisted until it no longer resembles itself.
• Families—once God’s training ground of love and faith—fracture under selfishness and neglect. Fathers forsake their posts, mothers stagger under the load, and children wander into emptiness.
• Churches—even the Bride of Christ—often chase the applause of men. Instead of confronting sin in their midst, they shout at rainbow flags while their pews drown silently in pornography and despair.

The apostle thundered in 2 Corinthians 4: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” That blindness is the smog we breathe, the poison in our institutions, the cataracts over our eyes.

And you can see it on Main Street in Anderson. Shiny trucks bought on credit, polished rims rolling out of dealerships, young women and men chasing vanity, thinking the next purchase will finally fill the ache inside. The emptiness is not hidden—it parades itself at stoplights, in social media feeds, in the restless eyes of those who have everything except peace. You hear it in the chatter at Friday night football games, in beauty salons filled with gossip, in overtime shifts worked just to make payments on luxuries that can never quiet the soul. It’s the cycle of striving without rest, running hard after smoke.

When was the last time you had Sunday dinner at Grandma’s and then played in the backyard until the light faded? We traded potlucks and porches for payments and posts, and our souls are thinner for it.

Pull back the curtain and Babylon stands revealed. She is not just ancient ruins; she is the spirit of every age that refuses Christ. A marketplace that trades in souls, a system that fattens the powerful and devours the weak. Every institution that resists the Cross is drafted into her ranks.

That is why offices reek with politics. That is why governments bloat while their citizens wither. That is why families collapse into ashes and churches peddle personality instead of truth. Babylon dresses in modern clothes, but her stench is ancient.

Your father is not your enemy. Your coworker is not your enemy. They are prisoners of war. The true adversary is the serpent—the Accuser, the Blinder, the Whisperer of lies—that convinces men that selfishness is freedom while fastening shackles to their wrists.

And here lies the cutting edge of truth: reforms will not rescue us. Policies, revolutions, therapies, programs—all are scaffolding on a crumbling wall. The rot is in the foundation. The only wrecking ball mighty enough to topple Babylon is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Cross alone breaks chains, exposes lies, and tears down thrones.

I know Babylon because she once owned me. I drank her wine, wore her garments, sang her songs. I served myself. I chased lust. I craved power. I was slow to learn, and God wrestled my stiff neck—and He still does. But I respect Him more, and I love Him more for it. My ears were deaf to His call until grace struck me like a Mack truck, again and again, until at last it pierced my darkness like lightning through a storm.

Even now, I stumble. Anger rises against my father. Bitterness bites at my heart toward coworkers and strangers. Selfishness crouches at the door. But Christ has opened my eyes. Once I saw only politics and personalities; now I see principalities and powers. Once I despised the blind; now I ache for them, remembering the chains that bound me.

The gospel did not just expose Babylon around me—it exorcised Babylon within me. Pride, lust, control—they were nailed to the Cross. Only there did freedom flood in. And so I cannot be silent. If Christ shattered my shackles, He can shatter yours. And this is not just my story—it is the story of every soul. The personal battle with sin runs through us all, yet grace extended to one another is where healing begins.

I think of the small-town grind: late nights at Waffle House after a shift, paychecks stretched thin by credit payments on trucks and toys, Saturday trips to the mall chasing trends that rust and fade. When was the last time you sat down for dinner at Grandma’s and played in the backyard on a Sunday afternoon? That kind of simple joy is slipping away while Babylon sells us vanity. And truth be told, I’m not immune even now—I could end up on Main Street at 1:34 in the morning, drunk and hollow. Babylon had me in that same cycle—spending, grasping, envying—until Christ broke through. His discipline was grace, even when it hit like a Mack truck. His love proved deeper than my stubbornness.

So what remains? A decision. Will we curl into despair, shaking our fists at the night? Or will we let our groans become a war cry of longing for the Kingdom that cannot be shaken?

We are not called to patch Babylon’s walls. We are not called to decorate her idols. We are called to stand as exiles whose allegiance is to another King. To walk through boardrooms and living rooms with eyes ablaze with heaven’s hope. To see every man, woman, and child not as foe but as captive souls Christ came to ransom.

So wake up. Refuse numbness. Bear witness. Cling to Christ as the world spins mad with blindness. For the groaning will not last forever. A trumpet will split the sky. The King will descend. Babylon will collapse in an hour. Every throne will crumble, every mouth will be stopped, and every eye will behold His glory.

Until that day—wait, work, and witness.

Lift up your eyes. The groan is not death’s dirge—it is the drumbeat of redemption drawing near. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17). “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

#InJesusName #Redemption #BabylonWillFall #GospelTruth #TheCarolinaHerald