In the space of just days we've heard about congressmen and pages, and we've heard of two different school shootings involving sexual perverts.  Almost everyone today knows someone, or is related to someone, who was molested.  A few years ago we saw the Catholic church reeling with accusation after accusation, many of them true, of young boys who had been molested by the very ones they looked up to for spiritual guidance.

Teachers, preachers, parents, and political leaders have all been branded with the scarlet letter.  It now seems that there is no truely safe place in the United States for children.  This problem has now grown to epidemic proportions.  When will it stop?  How did it start in the first place?

It starts because men (and now women, too) do not have enough character to run from temptation.  It continues because, when it happens, the victims feel too ashamed or too weak to stand up to the people committing these crimes.  It also continues because the family members (often wives) don't want to face the truth about what they know is going on, if they would just be honest with themselves.  It also continues because, when men like this man in the Amish community see what they are becoming, they hate it, and want to change, but don't see any way.  They hide behind a false front, hoping no one will notice what lies just beneath the surface.  This man evidently couldn't take it any more; couldn't take the shame - the ridicule that he knew would follow if he allowed himself to be arrested.  His self-imposed death was his self-imposed judgement against himself.  He felt that was all he deserved.  He was a tormented soul, searching for release.

I feel sad for him, knowing what awaits him on the other side.  Also sad because I know Someone who could have helped him.  If there is one constant thread throughout the Bible, it is that God is in the life-changing, destiny-altering business.  If he had only known...God's "peace that passes all understanding" was available to him!  If only he had known that "we've been made more than conquerors!"  The Bible tells me that, as a Christian, I don't have to be a slave to sin -- any sin!

You know, it's interesting:  liberals like to talk about things like forgiveness and redemption.  That's why they say they're against the death penalty.  "People can change," they might say.  And yet they hate hearing Christians talk about a God Who is in the business of helping people do just that!  Isn't that weird? 

The problem is, they want to change people from the outside in.  Change his environment, and you change the person.  But any farmer will tell you that you can dress a pig up in a fancy outfit, put all kinds of pretty perfume on it, and it will still get back in the mud the first chance it gets.  When God changes a person, He does it from the inside out.  Maybe that's why liberals are constantly fighting a losing battle:  their philosophy only goes skin deep, whereas conservatism is bone deep.  It's not just what we believe:  it's who we are!

- The Windcaller