America’s Most Dangerous Cities

The 14th annual ‘City Crime Rankings’ have been released. The study, published by CQ Press, compiles the FBI’s crime data each year and then ranks the nation’s major and middle-sized cities. This year the controversial study looked at 378 U.S. cities with at least 75,000 people and then calculated how dangerous each one was. The categories analyzed included homicide, rape, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft.

For the past year Detroit, MI was given the infamous top honors by squeaking past St. Louis - last year’s big loser. Crime has been no stranger to the Motor City, which was tagged with the distinction back in the 1980’s as the nation's "murder capital”. On the other end of the spectrum, the study ranked Mission Viejo, California, as the safest place to live in America.

All crime, whatever it is, wherever it is, and whenever it comes, results from sin. The source and results of all evil are described in detail in Romans chapter one. The Apostle Paul writes in verse 21, “Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.” Then in verse 28 he further explains the cause of the dilemma. "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting”. This is followed by perhaps the most comprehensive list of small and large sins in the entire Word of God.

All sin is offensive to a just God. And for Him to allow that to go unpunished and unpaid for would go directly against the grain of His holy character. Fortunately, His righteous character is balanced by His unfathomable love for a human race snared in the terrible web of rebellion.

This same love motivated Him to create and carry out an unimaginable and costly solution. That same plan of redemption allowed for any truly repentant lost sinner to break free of sin’s grasp and consequences. The entire concept is clearly defined and summarized in Romans 5:8-9. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”

Sin came into being not long after man’s placement in God’s special garden of Genesis 2. Its devastating results will remain until Christ’s blessed return ends its brutal reign of terror. And even now evil seems to be intensifying as the calendar of time winds down. But when sin does rear its ugly head, whether in the most dangerous or the safest place on earth, those in God’s family by faith know well, and have experienced first-hand, the miraculous blessing of Paul’s words on Romans 5:20. “But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Detroit may be ranked as number one in crime for now, but neither its frequency nor its wretched depths of depravity are priority one. In the final analysis, all that matters is whether or not sin has been fully forgiven by Jesus Christ, its power totally broken, and its penalty forever removed as shared in Psalm 103:12. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

Bill Breckenridge