//.. AUGUST 2004 / Vol. 1 Issue 4
William Penn once stated, "Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." In 1954, Congress added the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance to set this nation apart from "godless communists." The Godly heritage of our land is evident in all fifty state constitutions, on every denomination of U.S. currency and the Declaration of Independence. Each meeting of the House and Senate begins with a prayer to God and moreover, every U.S. Supreme Court case commences with the words, "God save this honorable court."
A number of challenges have come up in recent times declaring that such references to deity must be removed for the nation to remain "constitutional." However, our values and laws are based on the Word of our Creator. Leaving God out would deprive us of our cherished values on which this nation and its people stand.
Throughout the last century, we have faced the terrors of the world from the likes of Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot and a host of others. They spread an idea of moral relativism. A society's morality cannot be determined by what is deemed popular and favored by the majority. And each individual cannot have his or her own "values." Our morals and values are governed by a higher conscience. "The madness of tomorrow is not in Moscow, but much more in Manhattan," G.K. Chesterton once said. He knew Soviet totalitarianism was doomed to failure. But he feared the rise of an American form of moral relativism. One that we are seeing clearly today.
And it is seen most clearly in America's rejection of the sanctity of human life. 40 million unborn babies have been slaughtered in the past 31 years. A research agency of Planned Parenthood, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, reports that 75 percent of persons seeking an abortion stated that having the child would "interfere with their lives." America now reaps what decades of moral decay have sown. Children have become burdens to be avoided. The blessing of a child now becomes a freedom of a choice. T-shirts are for sale which say, "I had an abortion." Committing murder is now something to be proud of. They can write it however way they want to, but the bottom line is abortion is the rejection of human life.
And this same society who transformed abortion from a crime to a right now considers the ending of life its rightful domain. Physicians now debate their role in ending life. It is no longer up to the Creator, but now in the hands of technology and convenience. They say it's "compassion" to define the "quality of life" and determine who should live and who should die. What was once voluntary euthanasia now is involuntary euthanasia and is piously described as the "responsibility to die."
And now medical research targets the human embryo for development of medical treatments through the manipulation of stem cells. Cloning is no longer reserved for science fiction but is now under active research and experimentation. A new form of eugenics targets those who fail to measure up to a devised standard of physical, intellectual and genetic superiority.
In the last century, we witnessed the horrors of Auschwitz, the Soviet gulag, the Cambodian killing fields and Nazi "medicine." We fought and eliminated these so called horrors only to recreate them under new names. Ones that we have determined to be acceptable. -JP
In the society that we currently live in, it seems, in fact, that man has enslaved himself in freedom. This society has "freed" itself so much today that one can literally "get away with murder." As defined by the Webster's dictionary, freedom is simply "...independence; liberty; lack of restraint..." In itself, freedom is a very beautiful thing. Certainly, a little boy's heart goes out to the dog trapped behind bars in the pet shop; one's soul reaches out to the slave, beaten and treated unfairly. To be enslaved can certainly be called a moral evil. But when one uses freedom for evil, the freedom that was once good becomes a hindrance to goodness itself.
Take freedom of speech for example. Here in the United States, we are blessed to have freedom of speech. But in this day and age, one can use freedom of speech to validate the use of pornographic pictures, texts, etc. even in the midst of grocery stores and on public streets. And in regards to "freedom of choice", a person can now legally murder an unborn human being nearly up until the time of his birth! As Mother Teresa said, "If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?" It is no wonder that wars are constantly breaking out. Along the same lines, the elderly now are being killed off, not necessarily because they want to die, but because their family has the "freedom" to commit this injustice! If America is about making your own choices, being free to do what you want, how come the most innocent of human beings die for others choice? Environmentalists run rampant when a whale is killed in the ocean, but when a baby dies in his mother's womb, people simply nod their heads and agree that it is the mother's choice! Some would even respond that it is not even a baby within the womb, but only a flap of tissue. As any good biologist knows, this is a lie: life begins with conception.
John 8:32 says, "...The truth will set you free." Here we see the great problem that faces freedom today. The secular world lies about what will make one free. Our world today basically tells us that in order to be truly free we must gain as much power and wealth as possible, doing or killing anyone and anything we have to in order to achieve this goal. Unfortunately, this society only chains itself tighter and tighter with the chains of sin, lowering itself deeper and deeper into the abyss of hell. And so, as Christians, we are called to contradict this lie, to fight for true freedom: to spread Christ to others. -NP