Signs of the times

Some say that our society has reversed its moral decline. Crime and
teenage pregnancy are down, for example. Are you convinced?

Irrespective of this “objective” evidence that we are bootstrapping
our way out of the cultural gutter, other signs suggest we still have
some work to do.

Let’s examine some of the “other” evidence picked randomly from
various news sources within a period of a few days.

CBN News reports that a group of middle school parents in Northern,
Va., were shocked to discover that their middle-schoolers were engaging
in oral sex.

An internet poll conducted by “Seventeen” magazine reveals that 30
percent of the students believe that students start having oral sex
between the ages of 11 and 14, and 56 percent believe it to be between
the ages of 14 and 17.

According to the CBN report, the kids don’t consider oral sex as
having sex. I wonder which moral leader could possibly have planted that
promiscuous seed in their fertile young minds?

What should parents expect when the president of the United States
testifies under oath before a grand jury that he had not committed
perjury in a previous civil case by denying having had sex with Monica
Lewinsky — because oral sex isn’t sex?

USA Today reports that an international fashion photographer is
preparing to launch a website that will auction ovarian eggs for up to
$150,000 from some of the beautiful models he photographs. This is 50
times more than the conventional $3,000 that egg donors are paid by
fertility clinic clients. The concept is that if you are willing to pay
enough money, you will have a beautiful child.

This Internet entrepreneur has an ideal background for his new
enterprise. No, it’s not medical. He formerly bred Arabian horses that
he sold for as much as $200,000 each. In this glorious postmodern world,
after all, what’s the difference between horses and people? Besides,
what’s wrong with eugenics?

As moral absolutes are not recognized in our humanistic culture, upon
what basis do we make ethical distinctions?

Conservative News Service reports that families in Franklin, Ohio,
voiced their shock and disbelief at a high school teacher because of a
certain question he included on a list of possible topics for a writing
assignment. The question was: “If you had to assassinate one famous
person who is alive right now, who would it be, and how would you do
it?”

Almost as disturbing as the teacher’s action is the fact that so many
liberal relativists are vigorously defending it. On the night of the
report, these enlightened thinkers were all over the cable talk shows
defending the teacher’s effort to promote creativity in his students.

These zealous advocates of the arts were absolutely oblivious to the
evil inherent in encouraging students to flirt with the dark side. Note
that their hypothetical murder victim was not to be anonymous; they were
to decide which real live famous person they would kill.

They were encouraged to weigh the despicable qualities of celebrities
and determine who was most worthy of extermination. Implicit in the
question was the assumption that certain human beings morally deserve to
be murdered. To say otherwise is disingenuous.

No one should be encouraged to think such depraved thoughts,
especially not students. To the relativists, ideas are generally devoid
of moral content and societal impact (except perhaps, for hate crimes —
but never mind their inconsistency. A foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin of uncompromising little conservative minds.) But ideas do
have consequences. Our actions spring from our thoughts.

The foregoing stories do not describe events that find their way onto
any statistical lists of leading cultural indicators but are every bit
as relevant in measuring our society’s moral health.

Sadly, these kinds of events are not even aberrational, but
inevitable in a society that has abandoned God and absolute moral
standards. How can a society that doesn’t even believe in holiness
aspire to it? How can it ever purify itself from these contaminating
influences on the body and spirit?

When you remove God and His standards, you are left with a vacuum
that eventually is filled with the poisonous fruit of an unchecked human
pride.