“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Matt 5:13 (NKJV)
This past week tragedy struck outside a Safeway grocery store in Tucson Arizona killing 6 and wounding 13. A lone gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, with a long history of disturbing behavior opened fire on a political rally hosted by
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who police said was the gunman’s first target. Much has been written about the motives and causation of this tragic event. Many were quick to cite Sarah Palin and conservative talk-show hosts as the catalyst that ignited Jared’s shooting spree. Although no link could be found to ‘conservative ideology’ that did not stop the commentators from continuing the story line. The media was incessant in their attempts to give Jared an out, a reason for his heinous act. They desperately wanted to find a link between Jared and Sarah Palin, yet none could be found. Could it be that the heart of Jared was simply wicked? Was there anyone to blame other than Jared? Were their cries for help? I believe there were many but our “politically correct” society prevented Jared from getting the help he most desperately needed. A change of heart.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? Jer 17:9 (NKJV)
In an article published at crosswalk.com Kevin DeYoung, Senior Pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan wrote in his commentary about this incident:
“The human heart is desperately sinful and capable of despicable sins. Of course, no one commends the crime, but few are willing to condemn the criminal either. In such a world we are no longer moral beings with the propensity for great acts of righteousness and great acts of evil. We are instead, at least when we are bad, the mere product of our circumstances, our society, our upbringing, our biochemistry, or our hurts. The triumph of the therapeutic is nearly complete.”
In his book The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost Their Sense of Evil by Andrew Delbanco. we read
A gulf has opened up in our culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources available for coping with it. Never before have images of horror been so widely disseminated and so appalling-from organized death camps to children starving in famines that might have been averted. Rarely does a week go by without newspaper and television accounts of teenagers performing contract killings for a few dollars, women murdered on the street for their purses or their furs, young men shot in the head for the keys to their jeep-and these are only the domestic bulletins…
The repertoire of evil has never been richer. Yet never have our responses been so weak. We have no language for connecting our inner lives with the horrors that pass before our eyes in the outer world…
In our disenchanted world, one respected historian has recently remarked (and here he is perfectly representative) that mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin require us “judiciously [to] distinguish mental disorders that incapacitate from streaks of disorder that should not diminish responsibility.” This distinction would be meaningless to the scores of millions who died at their hands. What does it mean to say that the inventor of the concentration camps, or of the Gulag, was subject to a “disorder?” What does it mean to call these monsters mentally disordered, and to engage in scholastic debate over whether their brand of madness vitiates their responsibility? Why can we no longer call them evil? (3-4).
Kevin continues his commentary with these words:
“The world, and to a large extent the church, has lost the ability to speak in moral categories. We have preferences instead of character. We have values instead of virtue. We have no God of holiness, and we have no Satan. We have break-downs, crack-ups, psychoses,maladjustments, and inner turmoil. But we do not have repugnant evil as the Bible has it. And this loss makes the world a more dangerous place.”
With all the commentaries written this past week about the Tucsan shooter, the silence from the church was deafening. In one report a Catholic Bishop was quoted as saying:
“I wish I knew the answer. “But as the world continues to seek an answer to that question, we can, each in our own way, strive to respect others, speak with civility, try to understand one another and to find healthy ways to resolve our conflicts.”
Face it my friends, there is evil in the world because there is a real devil. The bible says Satan roams around seeking souls to devour and to spread death and destruction, to the individual as well as society (1 Peter 5:8). God loves; and Satan hates everything God loves.
In our politically correct society sin is no longer permitted to be called sin, evil must be explained away, and the secularist religion requires the removal of all judgments of any kind. The secularist sees the world as evolving and men as gods, while the Christian sees the world as fallen and in desperate need of a savior.
Where has the salt gone? Is there anyone left to stand in the gap? If not us then who is going to speak the truth? Who is left to “pour salt in the wounds” of society?
In our quest to get along we have been silenced by the thought police and our vocabulary has been corrupted by the PC society in which we live. We are no longer acting as the preserving agents. I am afraid we have lost our saltiness and therefore been reduced to worthlessness in a hurting dying world. Pouring salt in wounds stings a bit but it promotes faster healing.
Where does one go to find the saltiness needed to preserve moral order if the church has lost it? What hope does the world have if the preservative loses its power to preserve? Think about it!
And that is this week’s tail feather
(BBE)Along for the journey
You must be logged in to post a comment.