Part I
Whoa! With all the gangs and the increasing violence in our schools, what in the world is happening to our kids today?
Let's see. I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare complained that she didn't want any prayer in our schools.
We said, "Okay."
Then someone said, "You better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, love your neighbor as yourself."
We said, "Okay."
Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because we might warp their little personalities and damage their self-esteem.
We said, "An expert should know what he's talking about so we won't spank them anymore."
Then someone said that teachers and principals had better not discipline our children when they misbehave. The school administrators said, "No faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued."
We accepted their reasoning.
Then someone said, "Let's let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won't have to tell their parents."
We said, "That's a grand idea!"
Some wise school board member said, "Since boys will be boys and they are going to 'do it' anyway, let's give our sons all the condoms they want, so they can have all the 'fun' they desire. We don't have to tell their parents they got them at school."
We said, "That's another great idea!"
Some of our top elected officials said, "It doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs."
Agreeing with them we said, "It doesn't matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as I have a job and the economy is good."
Someone said, "Let's print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome down to earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body."
We said, "We have no problem with that."
Someone else took the appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children then made them available on the Internet.
We said, "They're entitled to their free speech."
And then the entertainment industry said, "Let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence and illicit sex. Let's record music that encourages homosexuality, rape, drugs, murder, suicide and satanic themes."
We said, "It's just entertainment. It has no adverse effect and nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead."
We are now asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. It has a great deal to do with "We reap what we sow."
These pearls of wisdom are from the personal journals of Clarence Schultz, a minister and retired Navy chaplain.