Decay of Conscience & How School Has Changed

You can only change a person, situation, or even nation if you properly analyze the problems and then apply God-given solutions to alter or transform them.

In the Bible the key word meaning “change” is the word repentance. It literally means to “re-think,”–to change your heart and mind.

Last week we looked at two factors in the decay of conscience in our nation–divide and conquer (the destruction of marriage and the family), and moral subversion–the crippling effects of sexual sin.

Here are the final three factors in our 21st century decay of conscience.

Decay of Conscience & How School Has Changed

Tactic Three – Chemical Warfare

As in the decline of the last century, our era shows a revival of alcoholic consumption. Over fifteen million Americans are alcoholics. They account for over 50% of all the fatalities that occur on our nation’s highways.

Drugs are the “candy” of a nation that lives for substance thrills. There are nearly nearly twelve million drug users in the US, and it is a primary reason for inner city crime and gang shootings (like in Chicago). Ninety percent of graduating seniors have numbed their conscience through alcohol or drug use on at least one occasion.

And now the open border policy of the current Administration floods the land with life-altering and destroying drugs.

Tactic Four – Propaganda and Lies

To win a spiritual war, you need to capture the battlefield of the mind. In a nation, this means controlling the education system that molds the minds of the up-and-coming generation.

The public schools have declined in America for decades. SAT scores have dropped nearly ninety points though school spending has increased significantly. While TV watching has leveled, Americans spend five-to-six hours a day on their cell phones–listening to and reading “garbage.”

All the while, literacy has plummeted.

Another concern is the growing power of the American media that now “disciples” the nation in a God-denying secular philosophy. Over eighty percent of media personalities don’t believe in a personal God, heaven and hell, or fixed absolutes of morality.  They have helped blind the American conscience to the truth of God’s Word and its application in everyday life.

Donald Trump was right about the plethora of “fake news.”

I remember watching a major news anchor describe a devastating earthquake. He opened his story stating in past times people believed that earthquakes were a mark of God’s judgment. “But today” he said, “we know that earthquakes are only the shifting of the earth’s plates. “In other words, God and judgment are old, and illumined newscasters are in.

What a sad removal of God and biblical truth from the realm of daily life.

One of the greatest purveyor of deception in today’s world is the seductive power of the music industry and its songs and playlists. Their message shouts “rebel, feel good, enjoy pleasure, and live for lust.”

During my teen years,  the Beatles led an entire generation of young people down the pathway of pleasure without God. With John Lennon proclaiming they were “more popular than Jesus Christ,” they sang of sexual freedom, (while living immorally), drug highs (Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), and dabbled in eastern religions (George Harrison in “My Sweet Lord”).

Today, worldwide, masses of young people dance to the beat and emulate the lifestyle. The hedonistic message of rap and other vile tones has magnified and expanded its mesmerizing reach. How many millions of consciences have been altered through the power of popular music?

Tactic Five – Destruction and Death

The final goal of the Satanic war is the destruction of as many lives as possible.

Each year over 600,000 babies are killed in the abortion mills of America. Despite, the repeal of Roe v. Wade, abortion remains big business with big bucks. Since 1973 we have systematically “tithed” to the devil over 70 million human beings. There has never been a larger global holocaust.

Child abuse now physically and psychologically maims millions of children annually. Most of it is done in the broken family home that little resembles the place of security and love that was once the pillar of the nation.

Some years ago on our street, a family adopted three precious children under the age of five who were rescued from an abusive home. All had been sexually mistreated, poorly cared for, and generally neglected. The baby boy’s head was severely flattened from being left unattended on his back for hours in a dirty crib.  They were passive, emotionally dysfunctional, and developmentally damaged. After a year of tender care, they began to laugh, play, and respond to love they should have received in their natural home.

Teen suicide rates have exploded since COVID with 18% of kids considering and 9% trying it. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among young people.  The cost of suicide attempts in the United States in 2019 was estimated to be $70 billion.

A junior high honor roll student shocked our town some years ago by borrowing a gun and killing himself. Two weeks earlier, I’d spoken to a group of kids in our area on “Choosing Life”, and nearly 50% stood and confessed having suicidal thoughts.  After much weeping and prayer, many were delivered from an obsession with death.  Two weeks later, their classmate ended his brief life–a sober warning of the need to walk in victory and truth.

Violent crime is up five-to-forty percent in major U.S. cities. Eight out of ten Americans will be a victim of violent crime at least once in their lives.

American society is fast becoming a death culture with shootings, abortions, suicides, and violence filling the landscape with fear and despair. Much of this happened in our lifetime, before our very eyes. One more example will illustrate the distance we’ve gone.

Children At Risk

Picture your local public (government-run) school. Two generations ago it was a place of relative peace, security, and educational advancement. In 1940, its top ten problems were:

1. Truancy or tardiness
2. Running in the halls
3. Talking out of turn in class
4. Unfinished homework
5. Loitering after school
6. Unreturned library books
7. Chewing gum in class
8. Talking during study hall
9. Broken windows
10. 10.Graffiti on walls

Today, a flood of cultural decay has swept across the nation. No longer is school a safe and secure place. As you roam the halls of Anywhere Public High, these are now the top ten problems:

1. Violence (including school shootings)
2. Stealing
3. Forcible rape
4. Teacher abuse
5. Knives or guns
6. Vandalism
7. Destruction of property
8. Arson
9. Rebellion against authority
10. Gang warfare

Quite a difference, isn’t it? And it happened in such a short time.  Kids were once safe at school in America, but now it can be a dangerous place to spend your time.

The neighborhood isn’t safe either. Recently a ten-year girl in California was kidnapped out of her own home during a slumber party. Her badly tortured body was found under garbage and bricks in a deserted alley.

This tragedy, and that of many others, is becoming increasingly normal in our land. A generation ago, cruel murders were considered unthinkable. Today, it is simply a by-line on the evening news.

Our national conscience has become dull.

Fifty years ago we gasped when one swear word was uttered on the cinema screen (in “Gone With The Wind”). Today we hardly blink when a beautiful ten-year-old girl is cruelly and savagely murdered.

What has gone wrong in America? And who is to blame?

The answer might surprise you.