Was 2020 The Worst Year Ever?

2020 was a year like no other. Between the COVID pandemic and racial tensions and lockdowns and a worsening economy and the death of some well-beloved celebrities like Alex Trebek and, regardless of your political affiliation, an “interesting” Presidential election, some have called 2020 “the worst year ever.”

While 2020 certainly had its challenges, many years in American history were far worse. The Stock Market crashed and the Great Depression began in 1929. Madmen killed nearly 3,000 innocents in 2001. The Holocaust killed more precious souls in 1942 than in any other year, and, in late 1941, the United States became embroiled in World War II.

In world history natural disasters, plagues, famines, the fall of nations, and wars put 410, 536, 1349, 1644, 1816, and 1918 in competition for the “Worst Year Ever” award. Yet, even these years do not come that close to being the worst year in world history. My contenders would be:

• The year Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit and plunged the world into sickness, darkness, evil, and death.
• The year Noah and his family were the only people saved from the Great Flood.
• The year of the golden calf’s construction.
• The years of the judges when everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
• The year God rejected Saul as king.
• The year David had his illicit encounter with Bathsheba and brought heartache upon his family, heartache that would affect Israel forever.
• The year the Assyrians came against the Northern Kingdom and destroyed it.
• The year the Babylonians took the Southern Kingdom captive.
• The year John the Baptizer was beheaded.
• The year great persecution first arose against the church.
• The year heretics led many astray.
• The year the apostles died.

We’ve lived through a rather interesting year. But we know “wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived” (2 Tim 3:13). Because people will get worse, we know this world will get worse. That’s why—regardless of the year—we put our hope in God “who does not change like shifting shadows” (Js 1:17).