A culture, like an individual, reaps what it sows. The seed of honor produces a harvest of honorable acts. The seed of anger eventually yields violence. The law of the harvest is part of the divine design for human society, and it allows no exceptions. A society which sows reverence for life will reap a culture of kindness and a legacy of respect. A people shorn of this seed will eventually produce a harvest of unspeakable horror, anguish, and inhumanity.

America is now living on the tattered remnants of a post-Christian culture. The tapestry of permanent truths is not completely gone; here and there a fragment appears. But the moral fabric of this culture has been torn asunder by the clipping shears of moral revisionism. The threads now stand loose and bare, and American society has few defenses against the barbarians.

The story of the 20th century is framed by the overarching theme of moral relativism. Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot, and a host of other moral relativists worked this theme thoroughly into the story of that century, but they have been joined by millions of modern Americans--relativists to the core--who are laws and gods unto themselves. Now, in the 21st century, we face unprecedented dangers posed by world terrorism and a threatening breakdown of the world order. At the center of these developments is the loss of any shared moral vision.

The clear dictates of Scripture are now commonly rejected as out of date and without authority. A society which denies God is not long held back by the prescription of His Word. Such a society soon learns that morality cannot be determined by democratic debate and majority vote, so it rebels against any moral code at all and retreats into the confusion of 250 million individuals--each with his or her own "values."

G.K. Chesterton, whose moral compass was as solid as any in the last century, knew that Soviet totalitarianism was doomed to failure. But he feared the rise of a more enduring and peculiarly American form of moral relativism. "The madness of tomorrow," he predicted, "is not in Moscow, but much more in Manhattan." His prophetic words should humble the American heart, for he saw the future clearly. That future is now our present.

The devastating loss of moral absolutes is nowhere better seen than in America's rejection of the sanctity of human life. No barometer could provide a clearer reading of our moral condition. In the past 31 years, over 40 million unborn babies have been sacrificed on the altar of human convenience. Much talk about abortion has been centered on the so-called "hard cases" which supposedly stand behind liberalized abortion laws, but the truth remains that the vast majority of abortions are performed for nothing more pressing than convenience.

The Alan Guttmacher Institute (a research agency of Planned Parenthood) has reported that 75 percent of persons seeking abortion stated that having the child would "interfere with their lives." Other research indicates that over 95 percent of all abortions are performed just because the parents do not want to be inconvenienced by the child.