Add Value: Life Over Death

The culture of death currently surrounds this generation of entitlement thinking. There was a time in our not too distant past when the safest place to be on earth was in your mother’s womb or at your mother’s knee.

A scene many of us carry with us all of our lives is that first day of school for our children. We watched them as they walked up the steps of that big yellow school bus or we loaded them in our vehicle and dropped them off at the school door. Many of us sat in the car lines at the end of the day when school lets out and watched as our precious children passed through the doors coming toward us for their ride home. At this time in the 21st century when we are more affluent, educated, and culturally aware than ever, we are turning on each other. In the last several weeks there has been mayhem and murder at shopping malls and schools, from elementary all the way to the University. There have been unbelievable stories of parents throwing their live children off of bridges into cold icy water to their deaths. There have been abuse stories of spouse-to-spouse, parent to child, and child to parent. There have even been reports of people being murdered while they are involved in worship while at church. While all of these stories of violence and murder make their way into the media some of the most heinous crimes have been those of client/patient with released violence toward their caregiver/counselor, eventually brutally taking the life of the innocent.

The immediate question, “Who is at fault?” is asked by the media and others involved in these tragic, often hard to comprehend expressions of humans turning on each other. While the media, psychologists, and the apologists for the pop culture dig deep into the background of each infamous killer, there never is full agreement as to where to place the blame. There are those who want to say that out of our desires to have more in accumulated wealth we have spawned an attitude of selfishness and greed. There are those who want to lay the blame at the feet of advanced medical science. Often we hear that the killer stopped taking their medication before going on the shooting rampage. The weakest of all of the explanations is that some people even want to turn the unexplained behavior into a political argument.

The fact that we have entered into a culture of death that has become a lifestyle for many people is well documented and debated in many academic, secular, and theological venues today. Life is precious. It is this writer’s opinion that life begins at conception and ends only when the Giver of life determines the time for natural death. In the culture of death, choice and things matter more than personhood. Rather than someone who has decided to take their life just quietly and quickly, there has now become the sensation of ending the life of others before taking ones own life. This is the ultimate act of selfishness and smacks of self-centeredness taken to its ultimate ugly end. Since our Supreme Court gave us the ruling of Roe v. Wade, it is estimated that 50 million people have had their life taken from them before they ever had a chance to live. One of the Supreme Court Justices is reported to have said that should the personhood of the unborn ever be established then the entire argument given for the reason of Roe v. Wade would collapse. We must come to our senses in this nation and develop a culture of life over death. Should we choose to continue on our current path, we will see more unexplained violence, mayhem, and murder committed. There needs to be a clear statement made by all of us who love life that the senseless, unfounded, and unanswerable reasons that these awful crimes are being committed do not give us the answer we are looking for. The answer lies deep within the heart of a people, a culture, and individuals to let it be known that every person is vital, valuable, and needed. While we might debate the opinions of this article, one thing that is not debatable is that we cannot long survive as a nation when we continue to choose death over life.

Salt and Light is published by Ethics and Public Affairs Georgia Baptist Convention H. Ray Newman, Sr., Specialist 770.936.5316 6405 Sugarloaf Parkway Duluth GA 30097-4092 rnewman@gabaptist.org For articles, statistics and updates on ethical issues see http://ethics.gabaptist.org Volume 3, Issue 1