There is a pattern of lawlessness dominating our society today that throughout history was found in civilizations in the process of decline. It is a pattern evident in nations that rejected God's Word as ultimate authority in their lives and is a pattern prevailing in many Americans today. Scripture tells us that...
Because of the increase of wickedness,
the
love of most will grow cold. [Matthew 24:12]
I believe America's rejection of Christ's lordship is the reason behind all the bloodshed, violence, racial hatred, moral decay, drug abuse and outbreak of deadly sexual diseases in our society. Lawmakers, educators and the media have made God an unspeakable subject. Even in prisons, there is a ban on religious motos, including the ten commandments. Even worse, many of our churches no longer exalt Christ as Lord and king.
Rejection of God's Word
Because man has rejected God's Word, he has been
given over to a reprobate mind that seeks self-gratification over
responsibility to others.
It's the false teaching of Antinomianism that
teaches since faith alone is necessary for salvation, one is free from the
moral obligations of the law.
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. [Romans 1:24-32]
Typically, Antinomianism considers that law and freedom are opposed,
that law is a restrictive mechanism, a product of a civilization and therefore
opposed to the free exercise of natural instincts. That is why antinomianism
and naturalism, as Arnold Toynbee pointed out, are twin manifestations of the
same movement. The New Testament declares that this distaste for law will lead,
not to the promised freedom, but to slavery (2 Pet. 2:19).
Even our
national leaders now model this behavior,
evident recently in the scandalous sexual behavior of the President followed by
a widespread acceptance of his adulterous sin by the American public. And we
are seeing the results of that reprobate mind with the increase in
homosexuality, lesbianism, abortion, euthanasia, drugs, crime, rebelliousness
in youth, and every evil imagined by the heart of man.
Death in the
Schoolyard
What would motivate an 11 and 13 year-old to take up a weapon and
murder their fellow students?
Was it the availability of guns? Or
maybe an overabundance of violence produced in Hollywood? Or was it the
environment these children were raised in?
Why is there so much violence?
Preoccupation with Crime
Many outraged Americans are saying that crime is their No. 1 concern
and politicians gladly respond by talking tough. But are they talking sense?
Congress responds by pouring more money into old, failed answers - more police,
more prisons, tougher sentences - quick fixes to persuade constituencies that
we're "getting tough" on crime.
Though the politicians continue to
tell us that we need change, one thing is sure: America has already changed.
The change is dramatic, and by most measures it is not for the better. Even a
casual purusal of the daily newspaper reveals that the American dream is fading
into a shadowy nightmare. More and more people are haunted by a loss of safety
and hope in a world where stability and certainty are vanishing.
Carjackings, drive-by shootings and random violence have shattered the security
families once had of being safe in their own cars and neighborhoods. People are
accosted at traffic lights, when they're pumping gas, and when they're bumped
and pull over. Schoolchildren are no longer sure which of their classmates may
be carrying a gun. American youths are being swept up by a wave of violence.
Gang violence, rapes, murders, and violent crimes make our even our nation's
capital one of the most dangerous cities in the world. The headline in the
Philadelphia Inquirer said, "A new generation of killers, feeling no blame
and no shame."
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-- having a form of godliness but denying its power. [2 Timothy 3:2-5]
The Apostle Paul said that in the last days man would be "brutal." The Greek, 'anemeros' literally means "untamed, savage, or brutal." He also said that the last days man would be not be lovers of the good - possibly better translated as "haters of the good."
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. - Romans 1:28-32
Our city streets have become asphalt jungles. Many of them are
unsafe even in the daytime. Gang violence has increased, drive-by shootings and
other random violence have become standard fare as people have become more
brutal.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote in the American
Scholar, "The amount of deviant behavior in American society has increased
beyond the levels the community can 'afford to recognize' and that,
accordingly, we have been re-defining deviancy so as to except much conduct
previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the 'normal' level in
categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standard."
[Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "Defining Deviancy Down," American
Scholar, Winter 1993, pg. 17.]
Why
are so many people suddenly preoccupied with crime?
For one thing,
anxiety hates a vacuum. With worries about the cold war and the economy
evaporating, the fear of crime has reared up in their place. For another, it's
become so common. Every few weeks the headlines resupply our worst imaginings.
Randomly, irrationally, crime pounds at the door of a slumber party. It pulls
up beside a tourist at a highway rest stop. It catches the 5:33.
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In Washington, D.C., a 16-year-old boy guns down seven youngsters at the National Zoo. |
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A 30-year-old gunman shoots two men dead and wounds two others at his former workplace, a Seattle shipyard office. |
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Seven co-workers are gunned down in a Xerox office building in Honolulu. |
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Five people are wounded at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles, followed by the fatal shooting of a Filipino-American postal worker. |
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A frustrated investor kills nine people and wounds 13 at two brokerage firms in Atlanta, then kills himself. Prior to the attacks, the shooter killed his wife and two children. |
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Four employees of a Las Vegas grocery store are shot to death by an ex-Marine and part-time nightclub bouncer. |
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Six students at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., are wounded by a 15-year-old sophomore. |
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Two high-school students kill 13 people and then themselves at Columbine High in Littleton, Colo. |
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Two people are killed and four wounded as a man opens fire in Mormon Family History Library in Salt Lake City. |
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In San Ysidro, California, 21 people are killed and 19 others injured when a man opens fire with an Uzi assault rifle at a McDonald's restaurant; half of his victims were children. |
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In Killeen, Texas, 23 were killed and 19 others were wounded at Luby's Cafeteria in the deadliest gun slaying in U.S. history. |
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In San Francisco, California, 8 people were murdered and six others wounded when a gunman armed with two assault pistols, a handgun and more than two dozen high-capacity ammunition clips walks into a downtown law firm and opens fire -- he also kills himself. |
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In Long Island, New York, 6 people were killed and another 19 wounded when a madman wielding a 9mm assault pistol opens fire inside a commuter train. |
According to the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, while the
population has increased 41 percent since 1960, the violent crime rate has
increased more than 500 percent, and total crimes more than 300 percent. The
rate of violent crime in the U.S. is worse than in any other industrialized
country. In addition, eight out of every ten Americans will be a victim of
violent crime at least once in their lives.
Violence in American homes
and in the streets is increasing steadily, has reached epidemic proportions,
and now disrupts millions of lives. For many children, no place is safe. Kids
are victimized at school, on the streets, and in their own homes. Children are
beaten, maimed, molested, and murdered by parents relatives and baby sitters.
The Spirit of lawlessness is breaking out across America and has spread
to younger age groups. Teenagers have lost all respect for authority - they are
becoming hard-hearted, sensual and violent. "The increases in violence we're
observing are among very young people and they are very dramatic," said Glenn
Pierce, the director of Northeastern's Center for Applied Social Research. This
crime wave isn't confined to inner-city neighborhoods in large urban areas.
Cities with populations of 25,000 saw a 40 percent increase in homicides - the
same as cities 10 times their size. The Washington Post concluded, "While the
severity of actions range from simple cheating at school to pushing drugs, to
cold-blooded murders ... the depth of the problem has reached a point where
common decency can no longer be described as common. Somewhere, somehow ... the
traditional value system got disconnected for a disturbing number of America's
next generation."
At one time in America professional athletes were considered role models, and even those who lived immorally did it quietly and secretly so as not to bring reproach upon their respective sports. Nowadays we see an appalling crudeness and incivility on the courts and in the stadiums.
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Charles Barkley wrote in his book that there are ways of tripping an opponent that do the most physical damage. Barkley spat at a fan, and off the court through a fan through a plate-glass window. |
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Mike Tyson bit off a chunk of Evander Holyfield's ear. |
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Dennis Rodman head-butted a referee, hit a player in the groin, and kicked a photographer in the groin. |
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Baseball's Roberto Alomar spat in the face of an umpire and later taunted him about his dead child. |
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Football's Lawrence Phillips is still playing despite 50 fines for team offenses and six brushes with the law, including a conviction for beating up a woman and dragging her down a flight of stairs by her hair. |
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All star guard for the Golden State Warriors, Latrell Sprewell, strangled and punched his coach when he told him to put some zip into his passes during a practice. |
Given the climate of permissiveness and tolerance in today's culture, it should come as no surprise that young people lack judgment and direction. When we see the results of their excesses and failures, we must also see that the revolutionary doctrines foisted upon them have failed. We should also observe the degree to which young people have been cast adrift on a sea of "cultural relativity" and expected to taste and touch and discern for themselves from a complex array of ideas that have meaning. Separated from the tried and tested moral structures of society, today's young people are more like orphans raised in a box. They are behavioral experiments based on flawed premises, with no contact with the principles and institutions that undergird civilization. Stripped of a vision of something greater than ourselves, which even humanist Norman Lear concedes is vital to society, they become wards of the state and its surrogates, the schools and the media. And we are surprised when they behave like animals?
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In New York City a 16 year-old boy was shot and killed by his 15 year-old best friend. The 15 year-old killed him and then stole the coat and shoes from the corpse. Worst of all, the teenage killer had no feeling of remorse. |
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Another 15 year-old boy sprayed bullets around the parking lot of a convenience store, killing a teenage boy. When questioned later, he had not even a tinge of guilt or sorrow. Instead, he displayed hatred and a desire to do it all over again if he had the opportunity. He had no remorse whatsoever. |
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14-year-old Marcy Conrad of Milpitas, California, had been raped, strangled to death, and left lying off the road in the hills outside of town. According to the local paper, at least 13 students went out to look at her body. One girl picked up the murdered girl's jeans, cut off a patch, and threw the jeans down along the side of the road. One student tried to cover the body with leaves. Another took his eight-year-old brother along to see the body. One boy went twice. Those who saw the body went back to class or to the pinball arcade. One went home to bed. Another student said he only cared about collecting the marijuana cigarette he had won on a bet that the body was real. As the newsaper reported: "The shock is the shock of the of the encounter with icy indifference, the indifference of the kids in the first instance, but much more importantly, of the culture that produced them... The depersonalization did not begin yesterday; it is not unique to this moment, yet it seems more complete - and they seem more alienated and isolated - than we have ever known before." |
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14-year-old Tanisha Lee was stabbed in a hallway fight at Wichita's East High School and later died. |
The problem is not isolated only to the United States. Urban
violence is exploding in countries around the world. In the rapidly growing
cities of Latin America and Asia, in European capitals freeing themselves from
years of communist rule, and in societies in the throes of political and social
change in Africa and the Middle East, millions of people have been frightened
and angered by a seemingly boundless wave of bloodshed. As in the United
States, criminals abroad are increasingly armed with sophisticated weapons and
police are outmanned; increasingly too there is despair over the inability of
political leaders to stop the killing.
Public order has disappeared in
"the new South Africa." Crime is rampant. In Cape Town, a serious crime occurs
every 17 seconds. Police have 1,227,047 unsolved cases under review, according
to Crime Investigation Services divisional chief Johan le Rous. It is
increasingly dangerous in South Africa to own a nice car since roving gangs of
unemployed thugs surround nice cars at intersections, drag the driver and
passengers out, beat them brutally, then drive off with the car - just for a
wild "joy ride" in which the car is vandalized or wrecked.
Because we have rejected objective truth and the foundation of all
that is good, we no longer even know the difference between good and evil. Our
consciences have been so seared we are no longer offended by evil but tolerate
it.
Since virtually all perverted behavior people engage in is now
categorized under "natural behavior," a door is now opened for more wicked
sins. Just thirty years ago we would have been appalled, even outraged, by the
decadence and debauchery that daily fills our streets, TV shows, movie screens,
music and art, video games, businesses, and political bodies. But today we
rarely give it a second thought. In fact, we often give it our approval, or a
least fail to speak out against it. We have gotten used to it all, even though
it is not a good thing to get used to.
As a society, we have gotten
used to illicit sexual relationships, adolescent promiscuity,
abortion, cheating, lying, stealing, prostitution, rape,
divorce, and even murder. We have gotten
used to financial mismanagement on both civil and personal levels. We have
accepted political corruption.
We have rejected personal and social responsibility and learned to blame anyone
or anything else for our problems and failures. We have traded in our
infinitely valued divine image for a nickel-plated pagan shrine erected in
honor of self-interest, immorality, and social apathy. The American ideal today
is me first to do what I want, when I want, to whom I want, regardless of who
or what it may hurt. These are the signs of a society gone wrong.
[Keith A. Fournier, "Re-Civilizing America," Law & Justice,
February 1994.]
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. - Isaiah 5:20
