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It’s the Morality, Stupid

Written by Jerry Newcombe

Everyone is scratching their heads trying to figure out what has gone wrong when disturbing stories break of more attacks by young men killing strangers at random. We are reeling as a nation in the wake of these mass shootings and wondering what has gone wrong.

Our cultural elites have led us down a path of unbelief, and now we are reaping the consequences.

I’m reminded of the story about Voltaire, the famous French skeptic, who helped grease the skids for the bloody French Revolution. When one of his skeptical guests was talking loudly at his home, Voltaire asked him to lower his voice. He didn’t want the servants to hear their godless philosophy, lest they steal the silverware.

It’s the morality, stupid. Of course, this phrase piggybacks on the unofficial campaign slogan of Bill Clinton in 1992: “It’s the economy, stupid!” This simple phrase kept them focused, eventually on to victory.

In today’s crisis, which is not something brand new, it’s been brewing for decades in America: It’s the morality, stupid And what’s the cause of this morality? We have driven God out of the public arena.

Unbelief assumes there is no divine accountability. When there is no fear of God in the land, then people do whatever they feel like doing—even if it inflicts mayhem on others. As an atheist character in Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov put it: “…since there is no infinite God, there’s no such thing as virtue either and there’s no need for it at all.”

America is ultimately an experiment in self-government. After the founding fathers hammered out the Constitution in the convention in 1787 in Philadelphia, a Mrs. Powell of that city asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government they gave us. His answer was classic: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”

The founders knew that the only way we could sustain this self-government was by the people being virtuous, acting in a moral way. And how would that morality be sustained? Answer: through voluntary religion.

The man who spoke more than any other at the Constitutional Convention was Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania. He is credited with writing some of the Constitution, including the preamble (“We the people”). He noted that religion is necessary for morality:

“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.”

George Washington said in his Farewell Address that it is religion that sustains morality. If you undermine religion, you’ll undermine morality.

That is precisely what has happened to America. Beginning with a whole series of misguided U.S. Supreme Court decisions, religious influence—frankly Christian influence—in society was restricted more and more. By the 1960s, God was effectively kicked out of the public schools.

When he was 14 years old, William J. Murray was the plaintiff in one of the key anti-school prayer cases on behalf of his atheist mother, Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Today, Murray is a born- again Christian, ruing the terrible decision and its consequences.

He once told me, “I would like people to take a look at the Baltimore public schools today versus what they were when I went to those schools in 1963 and my mother took prayer out of the schools. We didn’t have armed guards in the hallways then when we had God in the classroom. But I’ll guarantee you there are armed guards [now]. In fact, the city school system of Baltimore now has its own armed police force.”

We lack a fear of God in our land. Young people have no idea that after they die, they will have to give an account to Jesus, whom the founders called in the Declaration of Independence, “the Supreme Judge of the World.”

In the mid-19th century, one of the Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives was Robert Charles Winthrop, a descendant of John (“a City on a Hill”) Winthrop, the Puritan founder of Boston.

Robert Winthrop gave an address in 1849 at the Massachusetts Bible Society, in which he noted, in effect, our choice is clear: Christianity or violence?

Here’s what Winthrop said:

 “All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint.

“Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”

Would that we choose the Bible today, as the settlers and the founders of our nation chose to do.


This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.




No Disposable People

The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote that “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” He spoke from experience, having spent four years in Siberia after having his death sentence commuted.

LISTEN TO THIS COMMENTARY HERE

Unfortunately, many Americans can also speak from experience on this score. As regular BreakPoint listeners know, many of our prisons are overcrowded and dangerous places where men and women are kept in conditions that should shock our consciences.

Let me be clear: I’m not laying this at the feet of our nation’s corrections officials. If our prisons speak poorly of the state of our civilization, it’s largely because we incarcerate far too many people for low-level offenses and care too little about what happens to them after we’ve locked them up.

But there are many people who, despite the public’s lack of concern, are making a difference in the lives of those entrusted to their care. One of them sits on Prison Fellowship’s board of directors: Burl Cain, the warden of Louisiana’s Angola Prison.

Actually, to call Angola a “prison” and Cain its “warden” is a bit off the mark. With 6,300 inmates and 1,800 employees and covering 18,000 acres, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, as it is officially known, is more like a small city with Cain as its mayor.

Cain was the subject of a recent First Things magazine piece by Peter Leithart entitled “Remember the Prisoner.” That is a fair summary of Cain’s approach. In far too many prisons, the word “penitentiary,” from the Christian word “penitent,” is a misnomer. Men and women are warehoused and then released in no better and often worse shape than when they arrived.

Cain’s approach was summed up by Richard Peabody, a guard who has worked at the prison for 37 years. He told Leithart that “prisoners are offered incentives to better themselves, and when they prove trustworthy, they take positions of responsibility within the prison.”

Many of the opportunities to better themselves and prove themselves worthy of responsibility take their inspiration from Cain’s Christian faith. One such opportunity is Malachi Dads in which prisoners “pledge to provide spiritual leadership for their kids” and thus break the generational cycle of crime.

Another is the on-campus seminary. You heard that correctly, a seminary. New Orleans Baptist Seminary offers a four-year degree that inmates can earn behind bars. Graduates of the program become “prisoner-pastors” who minister to other prisoners.

Some even transfer from Angola to other prisons where they minister to offenders in those institutions. As Leithart put it, “Angola has become a missionary-sending prison.”

Perhaps the most telling touch is Cain’s overhauling of the way dying and dead inmates were treated. Angola has a hospice program where prisoners care for their dying companions. And when a prisoner dies, his remains “are carried to marked graves in a Victorian hearse, drawn by two horses and driven by [an inmate nicknamed] ‘Bones,’ who is dressed in tux and top hat.”

It’s all a part of Angola’s commitment to honoring prisoners’ humanity. Cain and his employees treat prisoners with dignity, in life as in death. And they seek their moral transformation and restoration to society—as Cain has been discussing with fellow wardens over the past several months under the auspices of Prison Fellowship.

Resources:

Remember the Prisoner: How Angola Became a Missionary-Sending Prison
Peter J. Leithart | First Things | September 12, 2014

Bible College Helps Some at Louisiana Prison Find Peace
Erik Eckholm | New York Times | October 5, 2013

By God’s Grace: Easter at Angola
Chuck Colson | BreakPoint.org | May 6, 2002

Angola Prison: A Place of Encouragement
Interview with Burl Cain | Acton Institute

Get Involved!
Prison Fellowship Ministries website

Warden Exchange Program, Prison Fellowship Ministries


This article was originally posted at the BreakPoint.org website.