Sunday, October 08, 2006

The Missing Link

As you may or may not know Katie Couric took over the position of anchoring the NBC Nightly News. Along with the new anchor, NBC began a free speech segment where ordinary folks can deliver commentary during the broadcast. With the recent tragic incident involving the shooting of children in a small Amish school house, NBC invited Brian Rohrbough to delive that nights commentary. Mr. Rohrbough, whose son was killed in the Colombine high school shootings, had this to say:

"I am saddened and shaken by the shooting at an Amish school today and last week's school murders. When my son Dan was murdered on the sidewalk at Columbine High School on April 20th, 1999, I hoped that would be the last school shooting. Since that day, I tried to answer the question why did this happen? This country is in a moral free fall. For over two generations, the public school system has taught in a moral vacuum, expelling God from the school and from the government, replacing Him with evolution, where the strong kill the weak without moral consequences. And life has no inherent value. We teach there are no absolutes, no right or wrong. And I assure you, the murder of innocent children is always wrong, including by abortion. Abortion has diminished the value of children. Suicide has become an acceptable action and has further emboldened these criminals. And we are seeing an epidemic increase in murder/suicide attacks on our children."

For me, the teaching of evolution in public schools has fostered an environment that leads many students to believe that there is little or no meaning to life. As Mr. Rohrbough plainly understands, evolutionary indoctrination declares that we are only animals in the struggle for survival. This has created a mindset in many of our young people that life lacks purpose. Yet, otherwise intelligent people can not see the link between this teaching and the ever increasing violence in our country which is steadily devouring younger and younger victims.

As time goes on, I believe this will only get worse. Yes, God can bring about revival in our country if it is His will and Christians should pray for the current state of affairs to be reversed. But, I honestly think this country will continue to decline steadily toward an ever greater state of immorality and that immorality will be looked upon as having nothing wrong with it.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

State of the Art

I was driving home from work the other day listening to a local radio station whose format is Christian talk. The station aired a commercial promoting an event at a local church. A nationally known speaker would be appearing at this event and something the announcer said caught my ear. The announcer invited listeners to come and hear this dynamic speaker at "our state of the art church". I thought, state of the art church?

Now, I understand what he meant. He was not only promoting the speaker, but was also promoting the venue. I'm sure it has great acoustics, top of the line audio/visual systems and professional lighting that rivals some of the fanciest theaters and music halls. He was speaking of the church building, not the Church. Today's visible church should be no more "state of the art" than the church of the first century. To me, the Church is state of the art when it preaches the truth of the Gospel from it's pulpit, in it's classrooms and through the lives of it's members as they do the will of the Father outside the four walls of the building. For the Christian, the Gospel is our art.