(Editor's Note: This article first appeared in the August 2022 print edition of The Stand.)
Violent crime is the news daily all across America. Carjackings, murder, gang warfare, robberies, unprovoked assaults, etc. It seems to get worse by the day. Especially, in our big cities. What used to be crimes common only downtown are spreading out into the suburbs. And what’s scary is that criminals are becoming more brazen carrying out what used to be done in the dark of night is now done in wide open daylight. We’ve always had crime in our country but not to this level. Things seem to be spinning out of control in terms of law and order, and I’m not sure where this is going to end up.
I told my lovely and talented wife Alison the other day, we may be on the front end of lawlessness and mayhem unlike anything we have ever experienced before. My dad and founder of American Family Association, warned that this could happen in his writings and speeches some 40 years ago. We are a country that, as a whole, is in full rebellion against Almighty God.
Have you wondered why there is such hatred and vitriol for Christian people among the “progressive” crowd – those in the liberal news media, the education elite, the entertainment industry, and left-wing politics? They constantly call us things we are not in order to mislead the general public to see us as the enemy of what’s “best” for America.
They pick and choose what to promote and what to suppress so they can distort the national narrative against the “Nazis” or the “white Christian nationalists” who hate gays and people of color and who stand in the way of the great progressive utopia they want to build. The reason they keep lying about us is that they must dehumanize us in order to enact laws to make our lives miserable. In other words, these people would like to “cancel” us all from participating in society. But I digress …
The reason crime is increasing, particularly violent crime, is not lack of gun control laws. No, the reason, the chief reason, is due to disregard for the Ten Commandments and Sermon on the Mount and the consequential breakdown of the family structure.
Need evidence? Young, black males represent roughly 3% of the population yet commit 50% of all homicides. Think about that. That is stunning. But to my point, over 70% of black children don’t have their father in their homes. That’s the breakdown of the family structure. So, the results are predictable. Having children outside marriage is directly opposed to what the Bible says is best for raising children.
The “progressive” Left looks at the causes of violent crime in terms of guns and racial oppression. That’s so they don’t have to talk about taking personal responsibility for one’s actions, which is also a biblical principle. The fundamental problem is not the gun, it’s the person using the gun that commits the crime.
I read somewhere that “Blaming a gun for crime is like blaming a pencil for a misspelled word.”
Yes, we have some crimes committed by people who are genuinely mentally disturbed, but most criminals are just morally and spiritually bankrupt. They don’t know God or fear Him, so they have become cold-hearted and given themselves over to what the Scripture calls a reprobate mind.
Galatians 6:7 says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (NKJV). The same can be said of an individual or a country.
If we continue down this road of shaking our fists at God and telling Him we will not submit to His commands and requirements for living – then we will suffer the consequences of our choices. Bottom line – the further we move away from the Bible, the more lawless and violent we will become.
We need to do what we can to stand for righteousness in our country while we also pray earnestly for a great spiritual awakening where millions of people give their lives to Jesus Christ.
It has happened before. Pray to God that it would happen again.
