The Root of Apathy

I was honored to be asked recently to lead a College & Career study group at my home church. And to be honest, I love being a part of this group, even though most days, I feel very inadequate as a 63-year-old grandmother leading a group of post-high school students.

I think what amazes me most about this class (other than the fact that these young people purposefully drive from their college campuses and work sites to participate) is just how open and honest they are in their pursuit to study God’s Word. In fact, they vote each week on the topic for the next lesson, and their choices reflect just how difficult it must be for young Christians to navigate today’s culture.

Last week, we were discussing the sanctity of life on the evening of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Needless to say, this amazing group of young people was in absolute shock over Kirk’s heinous murder they had witnessed earlier in the day, either in real time or from a recording. So was I.

They were even more shocked by the social media posts they had seen that celebrated Kirk’s brutal murder. Some of the students had even heard people firsthand as they condoned and even cheered for this televised slaying.

And as our Bible study progressed that night, these students also brought up the callous murder of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska. Each student spoke of how horrible it was to see multiple other passengers riding on the Charlotte, North Carolina, public transit train, people who did absolutely nothing to stop the crime or aid Iryna after her assailant brutally stabbed her. Instead, she was left to bleed out and die all alone.

We discussed American apathy, as a whole, and what we discovered was not as startling to the young people as it was to me.

According to the groundbreaking 2025 Compassion Study conducted by the Muhammad Ali Center from August 5 through October 8, 2024, 61% of the 5,400+ respondents believed that compassion in America had decreased over the previous four years. Additionally, the study showed that only one-third of Americans felt compassion for all people.

We wondered collectively if these statistics had anything to do with our assigned lesson topic for that night – the sanctity of life. So, as we do each week, we started class by sharing all the Bible verses and passages the students had found during their seven days of study about the assigned topic.

They shared some insightful biblical information they had gathered, including verses from the Ten Commandments and multiple instances where we are taught that life is sacred and that we are made in the image of God.

But they all agreed that God’s words to Jeremiah in Chapter 1, Verse 5, left no doubt as to our Creator’s view on the sanctity of life: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

With that verse in mind, I then pulled up American abortion statistics from the Guttmacher Institute and showed them (some students, for the first time) the number of abortions that have been performed in our country since January 1973, when Roe v. Wade became the law of the land.

They were all aware of this landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which made abortion a constitutional right. But in this instance, the students were more startled than the teacher when they saw that over 63 million babies have been murdered through abortions since 1973.

As we quietly sat and pondered this astounding number, I threw out several questions. First, I asked them what we lost as a nation when we killed those 63 million babies – in terms of real people who would have lived and loved and added to our world.

How many subsequent lives were never born to those potential mothers and fathers? And what gifts and callings from God did our society miss out on because of their deaths? Were preachers, teachers, doctors, and scientists lost in those 63 million abortions? If so, did we miss out on the cure for cancer or the greatest revival mankind has ever known?

What was the total cost to humanity from these abortions, besides the overwhelming cost of the collective (and individual) sin our nation committed in those murders?

Second, I asked them to think long and hard about this question: If the safest place on earth for a child before Roe v. Wade was in its mother’s womb or arms, then what degree of trust was lost to us as a people since 1973? In essence, how could we trust anyone if our own mothers would kill us in their wombs?

The absolute silence was profoundly deafening, but the eventual answers given by these young people were even more profound – and revealing.

My students came to the sad conclusion that when we lost our sanctity for life in the womb, we figuratively and literally birthed an American culture of callous disregard for all life – even the ones we now see being taken away right in front of our eyes. No wonder those people on that Charlotte train never lifted a finger to help Iryna Zarutska, and no wonder we witnessed adults and youth alike celebrating the televised assassination of Charlie Kirk.

This was a somber conclusion to a somber lesson: From the womb to the tomb, no one’s life is sacred in a society such as ours.

Later on, as I was praying for my students and preparing for our next class, I recalled one more Bible story, the one that took place on the Road to Damascus when a murderer of Christ-followers named Saul met the living Savior and went on to become Paul, the greatest evangelist of the gospel that the world has ever known.

I purposed in my heart to share the hope of that story with my students and to charge them to join me as I pray that people all across our nation (even Iryna’s and Charlie’s murderers) will have a real, Damascus Road encounter with Jesus, one that would change our entire apathetic world and restore a godly reverence for life – both earthly and eternally.

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