A deer hunter shoots dead five people and wounds three others because he is told to leave private property.

A group of highly compensated professional basketball players fight with one another and with fans in a sustained melee that shocks the sports world.

Scientists conducting stem-cell research are breeding animals with human blood in their veins, largely human organs in their bodies and human brain cells in their heads.

Americans are buying a new video game, "JFK Reloaded," that allows participants to fire three shots at the late president from assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's perch in Dallas.

What do these four stories have in common?

On the surface, almost nothing. But, I believe, there is a common denominator linking all of them – and many other shocking developments in the news on any given day.

Americans as a people are losing their ability to distinguish right from wrong.

There are many reasons for it, but it is undeniable that the ties that bind us are breaking down and have been for the last 40 years.

For at least that long, forces within our society have been persuading Americans – through the schools, the universities, movies, TV shows, advertisements, the press, pseudo-scientific research and a thousand other means – that there is no objective truth, that there is no ultimate morality, that there is no authority higher than government to which we as individuals are accountable.

These forces now represent a greater danger to us as a nation and as individuals than do all foreign threats combined.

For certain, far more Americans are dying as a result of this unholy relativist, ultra-secularist jihad than are being killed by the Islamist holy warriors.

It all started many years ago, around the turn of the last century, when an Italian communist by the name of Antonio Gramsci came up with a strategic spin on accomplishing the political objectives of socialism. Gramsci argued that the road to victory wasn't necessarily found in armed, violent clashes, but rather in a long-term struggle for the hearts and minds of the people.

He advocated a long march through the cultural institutions – education, academia, the press, the entertainment industry, the foundations, even the churches. If you take over the key cultural institutions, he said, the political establishment would fall into your hands like the last domino.

The enemies of freedom, the advocates of state control and socialism, have been following Gramsci's cue around the world for at least the last 80 years.

They have thoroughly succeeded in sacking America's cultural institutions – and, today, the political establishment is sitting there like an overripe plum waiting to be harvested.

The No. 1 goal of Gramsci and his followers ever since was to persuade people that God, if He exists at all, is basically irrelevant to the way we govern ourselves as individuals and as nations. Once faith and the personal morals they inspire become irrelevant, government becomes the supreme authority and only government force can prevent utter chaos.

There is only one thing that can right this listing American ship of state. The church needs to become re-engaged in our society. Pastors and rabbis need to speak out boldly and reassert responsibility in our culture. Faithful leaders need to put timidity and self-consciousness aside and talk about right and wrong.

We need to hear about sin, again. We need to hear about eternal consequences for our actions. We need to hear about good and evil.

Jews and Christians alike need to reclaim the soul of this country.

There is something that each of us can do today besides waiting for leadership, waiting for someone else to act, waiting for the situation to get even worse.

The Bible tells us in II Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."