Why the riots?

I've been dipping into some internet chat rooms discussing the London riots. Much robust and wide-ranging discussion about the root cause of these riots. Various opinions have been expressed about the extent to which the problem is due to the conditions people live in, or just plain simple yobbery. For me, going right to the heart of the matter causes me to think about the prowling monster in my own heart, looking for the right environment in which to emerge. Jesus put it like this. 'Then He said, "From within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, promiscuity, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person. ” (Mark 7:20-23).' Ouch. Well that's my personal reaction reading those words. They lead me to ask a question about all the uncharitable (or worse) thoughts and imaginings I have towards other people and situations that annoy me. If I knew I could get away with it, what would I do? To what extent are we seeing through the riots in London, people living out what they think they can get away with. Looting and vandalism aren't secret inclinations in my heart. I have others, and you don't  want to know about them. By God's grace (and there are times when frankly nothing else would have been powerful enough), most of my stuff gets dealt with before it breaks out in action.  Personally, I don't buy the idea that smashing up that car (someone is probably paying for on a loan and who won't get back the full value on the insurance) is somehow the responsibility of someone other than the people kicking it in. I suspect the people who are losing their jobs because their employer's business has been burned to the ground won't be exonerating the arsonists and blaming the Government. The adults who have been giving bricks to children to through at the police will have a job saying they were driven to it by some 'root cause' in 'society'. Society is the sum total of our social interactions, and they all begin with what the old prophets called 'the inclinations of our hearts.' But that's not to say that we see in London and elsewhere is down to no other factors. As posters have perceptively pointed out, even where combustable materials exists (and humanity is full of it) wider factors contribute to combining these materials and giving them the spark which sets them alight. The Old Testament prophets were of the view that God passes verdicts on communities and nations as well as individuals. They were concerned with structural issues in society as well as individual attitudes. Various opinions have been expressed on what some of these may be. Government policies, spending cuts, our educational system, and family life. Or we could talk about the materialism that tells us we have to have what we want, and that 'smart' people will always find a way to get it. We can talk about the ingratitude that resents giving to people in other countries because we have poverty at home, even when those 'foreigners' would gladly swap a week of their poverty for a day of ours. We can talk about the collective indifference to social problems that we are content to leave to fester elsewhere so long as they don't encroach in 'my' community. Nimbyism is a powerful force for inertia. In all the millennia human beings have populated their planet, variations on these themes have come around again and again. None of them in themselves is an automatic trigger for social unrest, as others have noted by comparison with other countries who have endured and overcome far worse privations than we have in our lifetimes. On a personal and professional level I have worked with some of the most marginalised, damaged, and excluded people to have been born or who have landed in this country. I've seen what individuals can wilfully do it each other, and the condition that structural evil or plain bumbling incompetence can leave people in. Yes let's address structural inequality and seek to promote more benign social norms. I give a fair chunk of my own life to both issues. And let's celebrate and support the work of those who seek to do just that. But as we do, maybe it's worth reflecting on what's chewing at the end of the root of these issues. Because whilst we can calm the monster with a nice home and neighbourhood, gainful employment, the latest gadget or experience, or charm it for a while with appeals to altruism or compassion, the experience of the last couple of days reminds us that the monster is always there, waiting to emerge from our own personal depths when the temperature is right, and the most opportune moment comes around.