Written by Dr. Frank Turek

How do we fix a world filled with murder, rape, betrayal, adultery, fraud, theft, sexual exploitation, pornography, bullying, abortion, terrorism, cheating, lying, child abuse, racism, assault, drugs, robbery, and countless other evils?

There will be no solutions unless we are honest about their underlying causes.  Although we don’t want to admit it, the truth is that every one of those problems can be traced back to a problem with the human heart.

No one knows that better than an honest cop.  My friend Jim Wallace is a cold-case homicide detective in California.  He’s been featured four times on Dateline for solving crimes that are decades old.  He’s noticed that every crime he has ever solved can be traced back to one or more of these three motives:  financial greed, relational lust, or the pursuit of power (money, sex and power).  We want these things so much that we are willing to use immoral means to get them.

In other words, the sick condition of our world is preceded and caused by the sick condition of our hearts.  That’s why we won’t improve the external world until we first improve our internal worlds.

You might think that this doesn’t really apply to you.  After all, you may be congratulating yourself because youhaven’t committed any of the crimes listed at the top of this column.

“Well, not most of them anyway,” you say.  “Who hasn’t lied or stolen something?   But I’m better than most people!”

Maybe so.  But your act of self-justification proves the point—instead of admitting our faults, our natural inclination is to minimize them or cover them up while claiming moral superiority.

We don’t want to admit this because it hurts our pride, which is also a heart issue.  “Don’t tell me I’m wrong!  You’re offending me!  You’re hurting my feelings!”

It’s no wonder free speech is under attack in the culture and on campus.  To tip a hat to Jack Nicholson, we “can’t handle the truth” because the truth exposes the fact that we are not really as good as we claim we are.  We can’t bear the fact that we are broken, narcissistic creatures who find it much easier and more natural to be selfish rather than selfless.

This affects even people who deny real right and wrong.  For example, leading atheist Richard Dawkins has declared, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. . . . DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.”

But Dawkins doesn’t act like he actually believes that. He recently insisted that a woman has the right to choose an abortion and asserted that it would be “immoral” to give birth to a baby with Down syndrome.  According to Dawkins, the “right to choose” is a good thing and giving birth to Down syndrome children is a bad thing.

Well, which is it?  Is there really good and evil, or are we just moist robots dancing to the music of our DNA?  If there is no objective morality, then there is no “right” to anything, whether it is abortion or the right to life.

And if there is no objective morality, then why does everyone, including atheists, try to justify their own immoral behavior?  As C.S. Lewis observed, “If we do not believe in decent behavior, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much—we feel the Rule or Law pressing on us so— that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility.”

Ironically, when we try to shift the responsibility for our immoral actions, we often appeal to other moral principles to justify ourselves:

• I used my expense account for personal items because I work harder than what they pay me, and it’s unjust that my boss makes so much more than me.
• I ran off with my assistant because she really loves me, unlike my wife who doesn’t give me the attention I deserve.
• I don’t have time for my kids because I’m too busy working hard to provide for their future.
• I had an abortion because it’s immoral to give birth to a Down syndrome child.

Even our excuses show that we really, deep down, believe in objective morality.  We often deceive ourselves into believing that something immoral is really moral (like abortion), but, as Thomas Jefferson famously declared, certain universal moral truths are “self evident.”  All rational people know this. Unfortunately, our tendency for moral self-deception is also universal. We know what’s right, but we make excuses for doing wrong by trying to appeal to what is right!

Where does all this leave us?

There is hope. Regardless of what you believe about the Bible, what can’t be denied is that the Bible nails the truth about human nature and our deceptive human hearts.  The book of Genesis admits that “every intent of the thoughts of [mankind’s] heart was only evil continually.”  Jeremiah wrote, “The heart is deceitful and wicked, who can know it?” Jesus declared, that people “love darkness rather than light.” And Paul observed that we “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” in order to continue in our sins.

But the Bible doesn’t just accurately state the problem; it also reveals the only possible solution.  Because of our moral failings, God’s infinite love compelled Him to add humanity over his Deity and come to earth in the person of Jesus that first Christmas.  The incarnation was necessary because an infinitely just Being cannot allow sin to go unpunished.  Instead of punishing us, God found in Jesus an innocent human substitute to voluntarily take the punishment for us.

Our pride tells us that we can rescue ourselves, but we can’t. No matter how much we try to justify ourselves or pledge to do better in the future, we can’t escape the fact that we’re guilty for what we’ve already done.

So it’s important to ask this Christmas season, “Have you accepted the pardon Jesus came to offer you?  And have you asked Him into your life to help heal your self-centered heart?”  If not, why not?  He’s the only true solution to the world’s evils and the heart problem that afflicts each one of us.

This article was originally posted at AFA.net.

The Democratic Party and liberal pundits are trying to make the case that because Mitt Romney is extraordinarily wealthy, he can’t relate to the struggles of average or economically disadvantaged folk; and if he can’t relate to their struggles, he doesn’t care; and if he doesn’t care, he is unworthy of the office of president.

History demonstrates that that argument fails miserably.

In 2010, the Wall Street Journal published a list of the inflation-adjusted net worth of past American presidents. Some of our finest presidents and some presidents that the Left love were also men of considerable means. Some inherited their wealth, some made it themselves.

• John F. Kennedy (according to WSJ, “Although he never inherited his father’s fortune, the Kennedy family estate was worth nearly $1 billion”)
• George Washington ($525 million)
• Thomas Jefferson ($212 million)
• Theodore Roosevelt ($125 million)
• Andrew Jackson ($119 million)
• James Madison ($101 million)
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt ($60 million)
• Bill Clinton ($38 million)
• James Monroe ($27 million)
• John Quincy Adams ($21 million)
• John Adams ($19 million)
• Dwight Eisenhower ($8 million)

And let’s not forget the extraordinarily wealthy Democrats who have served or are serving in Congress (some of whom sought to be president). Information comes from Roll Call and The Center for Responsive Politics :

Democratic U.S. Senators:

• John Kerry ($193.07 million)
• Jay Rockefeller ($81.63 million)
• Ted Kennedy ($43-163 million)
• Mark Warner ($70.30 million)
• Frank Lautenberg ($55.07 million)
• Richard Blumenthal ($52.93 million)
• Dianne Feinstein ($45.39 million)
• Claire McCaskill ($17 million)
• Tom Harkin ($10.28 million)
• Herb Kohl ($9.23 million)
• Jeff Bingaman ($7.41 million)
• Kay Hagan ($70.6 million)
• Ben Nelson ($6.56)

Democratic U.S. Representatives:

• Nancy Pelosi ($35.20 million)
• Jared Polis ($65.91 million)
• Nita Lowey ($15.46 million)
• Carolyn Maloney ($10.14 million)
• Shelley Berkeley ($9.29 million)
• Lloyd Doggett ($8.53 million)

If being raised by wealthy parents or possessing wealth renders people unable to relate to the poor and unable to be compassionate, are George Clooney, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet callous men unable to feel the pain of the disadvantaged? Are they unable to provide solutions to the problems that plague those with fewer material blessings?

What about Obama’s daughters? They have never known poverty. They are being raised in privilege and affluence, attending the most expensive private schools in the country. Are their characters being deformed by such affluence and privilege? Will they become callous young women unable to relate to the disadvantaged, lacking in compassion, and unable to contribute to solutions for those who have far fewer privileges?

Chelsea Clinton was raised in affluence, attended the best schools in the country, and married a wealthy Wall Street hedge fund employee who previously worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. Is she a heartless, selfish elitist unfit for serving the less privileged?

According to CNBC , Hillary Clinton’s current net worth is $85 million. What will Democrats say about that if she decides to run for president in four or eight years?

If wealth renders people compassionless and unsuitable for elected office, Democrats need to tell Americans how much wealth disqualifies a person for the office of president. And does wealth equally disqualify someone for fitness for Congressional office?

The truth is that one doesn’t have to “relate” to those who are poor to have deep sympathy and empathy for their suffering.  Wealthy people often have the luxury to travel and read deeply about the world. Through these experiences, their eyes, minds, and hearts are opened to the suffering around the world and here at home. It’s true that among the wealthy there can be found greed, self-absorption, and cruelty, but there can also be found thankfulness, selflessness, generosity, and kindness. Sometimes people who have been given much or earned much are acutely aware of their blessings and believe that to whom much is given, much is required.

There is ample evidence that those who have been raised in privileged circumstances and those who have worked doggedly to be successful are fully capable of feeling compassion, demonstrating service, and finding solutions to even the most challenging social problems.  The argument that wealthy people cannot serve the poor is foolish, dishonest, and—as is so often the case with liberal arguments—inconsistently applied only to conservatives.

By Julie Schmidt

Recently Illinois Senator Ed Maloney (D) introduced SB136 which would require “the parents or legal guardians of children attending non-public schools, a defined term, or private or parochial schools to annually register their children with the State Board of Education, in conformance with procedures prescribed by the State Board of Education.”

Basically homeschoolers and anyone else who has deemed the public education system a failure would have to register their children with the State, since apparently Senator Maloney believes “that since the State was responsible for the education of our children, the State should know who was being homeschooled,” according to Pastor James McDonald who met with the Senator along with several homeschooling advocates.

I hate to burst the Senator’s progressive utopian bubble, but as Pastor McDonald points out “in the eyes of most home educators, the responsibility to ensure our children receive a competent education belonged to parents, not the State.” I don’t think registering children, like licensing a dog, was exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he envisioned public education.

Jefferson trusted the people closest to the issue to care most for the outcomes. Regarding education he stated in a letter to Joseph Cabell, “But if it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the Governor and Council, the commissioners of the literary fund, or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience.”

Hardly a resounding endorsement of the power of the State, which he was extremely wary of, when he stated in the same letter, “What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and power into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate.” Or even the Illinois Senate.

Jefferson also believed that education was-brace yourself progressives-voluntary. He stated, “It is better to tolerate that rare instance of a parent’s refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings by a forcible transportation and education of the infant against the will of his father.” So I will give you a moment to consider how he would have viewed compulsory registration. “Appalled” would be kind.

Laurie Higgins of Illinois Family Institute (IFI) applies the “board of education” to our illustrious politicians’ posteriors when she said, “Serious thought should be given to the proper role and limits of our state and federal governments. If the vast majority of home schooling families are educating their children well, IFI doesn’t believe that it is appropriate to penalize them in order to solve the problem of the failures or inadequacies of a minority of home schooling families.”

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