The assassination of conservative icon and co-founder of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk brought a number of truths into focus, chief among them that we are living in a sick and twisted culture of death. Bloodshed is gleefully celebrated, encouraged by influential popular figures and influencers, and justified with trivial, arbitrary reasons.
Disagree with a leftist on policies addressing the important issues facing the nation? In their eyes you, like Kirk, deserve to be fed a lead salad and dropped in a six-foot hole.
Don't believe a man can magically become a woman through hormone injections and a little chopy-chop here, a little chopy-chop there? It's the firing squad for you, mister.
Do you support securing the border and deporting the millions of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S., many of whom are violent criminals, sex traffickers, and cartel members? You're nothing more than a dirty, rotten Nazi. And there's only one way to deal with a Nazi.
Radical progressives have convinced women to celebrate the slaughter of pre-born children in the womb, obliterating their own flesh and blood — their legacy. And for what? Sex without consequences. Career opportunities. Better finances.
Add to this the most recent rash of church shootings — many carried out by transgender shooters and other assorted left-wing nutjobs — the assaults on ICE officers, and the horrific celebrations by the left over the assassination of Kirk, and it becomes clear rather quickly that Western civilization has abandoned the pillars of truth and morality it was built upon and is on the brink of collapse.
Leftism, and the culture of death it has produced, is a cancer eating away the bones of our republic. Our founders told us, from the very beginning, that a free country can only survive if its citizens are a moral, upright people. A culture that is obsessed with death most certainly indicates that morality has been chucked in the waste basket.
Our only hope is to blast this cancer consuming us from the inside out with a high dose of intense radiation: the truth.
And the truth is Jesus Christ.
A restoration of Christian values as the commonly held principles we believe in is the only way to prevent the West from total collapse. We must rebuild the pillars that serve as our country's foundation. Europe must follow suit.
A frighteningly large portion of society, especially young people, no longer see or believe in the dignity of human life. In a CDC report from 2022, data shows that the number of legal abortions performed in the U.S. was somewhere around 613,383. Each one of those is a murder.
Young liberals, particularly those from Generation Z, find that political violence — killing or harming someone who holds a different political opinion from one's self — is sometimes justified. A total of 20% of 18-to-29-year-olds believe it's okay to hurt someone due to their political beliefs.
That's both shocking and horrifying.
Let's talk about the cure for the cancer destroying our society.
Sacred Scripture teaches us that all human beings are made in the image of God. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them," reads Genesis 1:26-27.
What does it mean to be "made in the image of God"? It means that human beings, unlike animals, possess intellect and free will. We have the ability to know truth, choose the good, and enter into a relationship with our Creator. We also have the capacity, the need, to form relationships with other human beings.
Human beings, therefore, have infinite value and worth because we are reflections of God's goodness and communicable attributes. Humans can create, love, and share many of the communicable attributes of the Lord, while also being made to participate in the divine life of the Godhead.
You and I were created to be God's representatives, his vice regents, to rule over the earth under His kingship. That was our original intent and purpose. We have value because we reflect our Creator.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches in paragraph 1701, "The divine image is present in every man. It shines forth in the communion of persons, in the likeness of the unity of the divine persons among themselves."
Paragraphs 1702-1703 goes on to explain the image is not erased by sin and that every single human being is created with a spiritual soul, reason, and free will.
Later on in the Catechism, paragraph 2258 says, "Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator."
These truths, along with the gospel of Jesus Christ, are foundational to the survival of Western civilization. When a society views all life as precious and sacred, it becomes a treasure worthy of the utmost care and protection.
Parents need to faithfully teach the sacredness of life to their children, really driving home that point by guiding their interactions with others, whether it's an argument with a friend or a scuffle on the playground with a bully.
Future generations must be taught that violence in defense of one's self is always a last resort. The reason it's a last resort is because life is so very precious. We should want to do all in our power to avoid damaging it in others, even if they've wronged us.
When movies, television shows, novels, and comic books once again begin to shine a light on the dignity of humanity and reveal the true horrific evil of devaluing it and the impact it has on society, the message dodges the barriers in the human heart and soul. It lodges itself in the soft tissue and results in profound change in how we approach one another.
Your progressive neighbor — though subscribing to an evil, vile worldview — is still an image bearer of God and thus has dignity. The same goes for you, the conservative. If both sides begin to recognize this truth, we can have important, passionate discussions and disagreements about the direction of our society without harming one another.
Looking at things from this perspective leads to healing, the discovery of common ground, and true progress toward real solutions for the challenges of the modern day.
Failure to implement these truths, to understand them intellectually and emotionally, will result in further division, more violence, and ultimately, collapse.
Pray for the former and against the latter.
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