"The Culture of Me" IS a culture of death.

Joe over at Evangelical Outpost posts about people who understand what abortion is and what it does, and participate in it anyway. The suggestion here is that many of us in the pro-life movement are naive, because many of us assume that nobody can do this sort of thing and know what it is.

There are many people who have been saved from the horror of abortion because they have been given information that helped them see what abortion destroys.

But how can there be people who know, but don't care enough to let it stop an abortion from happening?

Joe puts his finger on a cultural trend toward unbridled selfishness, and self-indulgence, even at the expense of other people. A culture where we throw away ex-spouses like worn-out furniture if they don't satisfy every single one of our selfish needs. It is a culture where pregnancy is treated like a disease, where birth control gives us meaningless sex on demand, without responsibility or (we like to tell ourselves, anyway) without consequences. Where having children is ok, as long as you don't change your life around them or have more than the average two. A culture where you can get pornography on your cell phone, where toys for young girls encourage them to be boy crazy before they even start puberty, where certain young teachers think it is OK to sleep with their students, because they feel like it, and where students will sleep with each other in public because they think it is cool.

We have created for ourselves a culture in which our consciences are so warped, many of us have come to sincerely believe that the greatest sin is against the Self: not doing what I feel like doing, when I feel like doing it, and with whom, no matter who may get in the way. Joe calls it a "Culture of Me. But I think Culture of Death is still the most accurate term.

Sin is by definition a choice of a the temporary over the Eternal and the law of God. The Natural Law, being a part of God's creation, is God's law. The gravest sins are those wherein the sinner knows he is violating God's law, and does it anyway. Many of the people Joe mentions in his article excuse themselves like this: "I know this is wrong, but I'll do it anyway, and then I'll repent." This does not mitigate the gravity of the offense. It deepens it. God only forgives us if we are genuinely repentant. Why take chances, when you can avoid the sin in the first place, and save yourself the trouble of repenting later? "For the wages of sin is death."

In the case of abortion, this is quite literal. It leads to the physical death of an innocent human being, and the spiritual death of other human beings.

Those who have experienced the horrors of abortion, and who have come to regret it--truly and fully regret it know better than anyone that this is true.

Many of them have reached out to God already, and been forgiven.

There are others who know, but prefer their denial to the discomfort of facing the truth. There's another problem. The "Culture of Me" denies that suffering could possibly, in the long run, lead to better things.

We are swimming against the current of our own society, in which many of the basest and ugliest parts of mankind's sinful tendencies are glorified. If sin leads to death, and the culture celebrates sin, it is a Culture of Death.

And a people in desperate need of repentance, forgiveness, and healing.