A Culture Of Death
© 09.21.07 By Cynthia Clearwater
This year 32,000 Americans will take their own lives in the act of suicide.
Modern medicine has classified this dark disposition as a medical condition. Still, medicine has made minuscule progress in the prevention of suicide. Perhaps this is because the inclination to take ones own life has a deeper cause then purely the physical or mental.
Cutting and other forms of self injury are on the rise among adolescents and teenagers. This behavior, we are told, is a warning sign of suicidal thought. Extreme depression and low self esteem are ongoing problems with today's youth. These are the emotions present in the lives of suicide victims. Here medicine has failed to diagnose the problem. Yes, depression and pain. But why the depression and pain? Why the suicidal escape? These things are merely symptoms, as is suicide of the mental and emotional but ultimately of one's spiritual state. While there are cases of severe chemical-mental instability in suicide we cannot believe this is the case in every one of the 32,000 suicides each year.
What parallels the climb of suicide rates in the US? The stripping of our popular culture. I say stripping because even though sixty years ago you would never have seen some of the things we do today; they were there but behind the scenes held in check by the remnants of a Christian culture. Sixty years ago America still held to tradition, whether we believe the things we said or not. Now we are in the open with it. The graphic gore, tearing of limbs and decapitations, shown in movies today, the sick violence that makes up the entirety of some movies. Clothing that encourages our twelve-years-olds to show off their bodies. Government schools that educate America's young on the homosexual lifestyle. The dark, the dirty and the destructive. Our American culture encourages cutting and - ultimately - encourages suicide.
Is it then societies fault? No. To blame society for the destruction of our children would be to blame the motor car for running over the pedestrian. It is not the car, but the driver's fault. And so it is with our modern culture. Society is made by the people. Ultimately, a society points one in a certain direction. American culture is leading people down to the worst the world has to offer. The fact that we are still low on the list of world suicides is because there is still something remaining in our twisted culture that resembles life. It is here and there but fast disappearing.
What is missing in American culture? What is being replaced with dark and demonic ideas, things that point our children toward death? God. God is disappearing from American culture. This nation was founded as a Christian commonwealth. It wasn't just show. It was real. Over the years it has drained away and whereas a Christian view of things affected the lives of even the nonbelievers, now the darkness of the world is creeping into the church. There is no light for those walking the path toward death. The world loves death and American youth are proving it.
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