By James Montgomery Boice
Some years ago I read an article in Newsweek about a husband and wife team of scientists who studied ducks. In order to observe their habits, they built a blind by a pond, then settled in to watch. During their investigations, they observed among the ducks incidences of what they called gang rape. While it was not written in so many words, the bottom line of the article was this: If gang rape takes place among the ducks, we shouldn't be surprised that it takes place among human beings, too. And, sad to say, Newsweek is not the only source of this "man is no better than an animal" philosophy. An article in another publication featured a prominent photograph of an adult baboon holding an infant baboon it had killed. The conclusion was that if animals can kill their young, so can we. With media output like this, is it any wonder our society permits abortion and the murder of a million-and-a-half babies in this country every year?
You see, if we do not have a perspective on life that is higher than what we can touch, taste, and see, we cannot appreciate that life is not an accident of evolution, but a gift of God and so ought to be preserved. Instead, when the only direction we can look is down, we conclude that we have evolved a bit up from the animals. And because we define ourselves by the creation, we cut ourselves off from God the source of every good and perfect gift. Is it any wonder, therefore, that we find ourselves and our society justifying sinful, wicked behavior by appealing to the animals? If we do not retain the knowledge of God in our minds, but rather suppress it, we experience what Paul so clearly documents in the first chapter of Romans: the revealing of the wrath of God. The result is we act like the animals, and in the end we do what even the animals will not.
I am convinced the great problem in America today is that people are not thinking. It's a cultural phenomenon that has spilled over into the church.Read More >>>
