David Brooks finds reason to breathe easier, if only for a moment.

Since 1993:

• The rate of family violence has declined more than 50%
• Violent crime is down 55%
• Violence by teenagers is down 71%

The good news continues…

• Teen pregancy is down 38% since it’s peak in 1990
• The number of abortions has been in a steady decline since the early 90’s
• Adolescents are delaying first sexual intercourse by several years
• Adolecents are having fewer sexual partners
• Fewer American children live in poverty
• Divorce rate are edging down, especially among college-educated post boomers
• Drunk driving fatalities are down 38% from 1982 (despite many more miles driven)
• Overall consumption of hard liquor is down 30% in that same period

And so it’s been going for some time, reminding anyone working on a biblical worldview of the difference between improved cultural norms and spiritual renewal.

Of course there’s good reason to give thanks for both, since anything that’s genuinely good for people is a genuinely good gift from God.

That said, some people of faith (Christian and otherwise) insist that no moral good can reside in anyone who doesn’t hold the faith they hold in the way they hold it. This claim doesn’t stand up in real, daily contact with people who are honest in their dealings, faithful to their contracts and consistent in their friendships — which is to say, a lot of ordinary folk we work with every day. Things are further complicated for anyone who’s been taken to the cleaners by someone who says all the right things about God.

Absent any compelling evidence that our improved social metrics are the result of sweeping spiritual revival, the conversation about God takes a different path. Our dialogue is not about morality and the social good so much as the admittedly strange proposition that the Creator intends to know us as a person knows his friends. The rescue that Christians claim was accomplished in the life of Jesus is not merely a rescue from moral turpitude but to the likeness of Christ. To be like Jesus is the goal of our humanity.

In a season of mixed messages about the economy, the war, the courts, sexual politics, foreign relations, stormy weather and the social contract, this may not be a bad time to reflect on why the good news of God’s kingdom is, in fact, transcendently good news.