I will give some comments at the end.
CP
So a group of Gloucester high school girls supposedly made a pact to get pregnant, and 15 or so succeeded. You can read about it in Time.
For some reason, Time focused in on contraception. Superficially, it makes sense: Use contraception and you won't get pregnant. But these girls wanted to get pregnant, so why bring it up? Time started out by suggesting the girls may have been inspired by a couple of Hollywood chick flicks, but quickly changed the subject to Gloucester's sagging economy. The once-proud fishing boomtown has gone bust, leaving girls no choice but to get pregnant, concluded Time.
The real issue here is one of morals. Orthodox Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, Stoic, Secular Humanist... the brand doesn't matter. Pick one--stick to it. Our popular culture is amoral: it knows no right or wrong, which makes personal morality even more important, especially for adolescents.
Human society has always had its ills. Every 21st century sin can be found in some form in the Old Testament. So what's changed, you may ask? Here's what's changed: People used to do these things in seclusion, confining their activities to private clubs and other out of the way places. Nowadays, it's everywhere. The average person can't escape the spillover. Our society is becoming a toxic waste dump.
The real damage here is to the soul. Rampant consumer marketing, money worship, and an obsession with the human body are squeezing the poetry and beauty from our lives. It's a mad, howling 24/7 crush of YouTube, TV, advertisements, porn, booze, drugs, Hollywood, news, glorified violence, shouting, get rich now, unbridled anger...
All these things conspire to distort the meaning of man and woman. They desensitize the soul. Not just to vice, but also, tragically, to life's intrinsic beauty. Does anyone out there remember how to enjoy themselves without an electronic device or some consumer product?
Life is beautiful. But not to a soul pregnant with society's child. You can give kids condoms, but what they really need is a contraceptive for the soul.
The author of this article goes by the online name of foutsc and I gave you the link to the blog above. Foutsc contacted me by email inviting me to read the post and to do a story about it here at Do The Right Thing.
I thought so much of this post, I asked for permission to cross - post and then make my comments, and it was granted.
I've heard and read that: if schools taught more than abstinence then this type of thing wouldn't happen; if safe sex was taught this type of thing would go away; if birth control was promoted then some of these 17 girls might not be pregnant.
OK, this is typical diversionary tactics by those who want to ignore the facts.
THESE GIRLS WANTED TO GET PREGNANT! It was their plan. Teaching abstinence had nothing to do with this. As our guest post stated so correctly - it is a moral problem.
I don't know any of the 17 families involved, but if these girls were smart enough to put this plan in effect, then I can almost guarantee that they knew all about safe sex, condoms, and other forms of birth control.
And where does this garbage of the only thing being taught is abstinence come from? I know my memory sometimes fails me, but I certainly remember lots of controversy about handing out condoms in schools.
Planned Parenthood would not only have furnished birth control, but disgustingly they would make sure those 17 babies could be aborted if those mothers changed their minds.
Is it clear where I'm going with this? Our country is morally messed up! It's not a conservative vs. a liberal thing or even a Christian vs non - Christian thing (this was the only place I had slight disagreement with the author, as "brand" does make a difference; not denominational, but belief in Jesus Christ as our Savior. I did understand the point though.)
That said though, the moral statistics within the "church" and outside unfortunately closely mirror each other.
Personal responsibility needs to become "popular" again in this great nation. Blaming all the wrong things for this horrible news item just sets up the next perversion of morality to be a shocking headline in the future.
I could quote so many different scriptures, but I just like going back to the well known John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
You can't change the world by yourself, but you can change yourself and if you don't know the love of Jesus Christ as your Savior then you can help change the world by changing yourself. That's how much God loves you, He wants you to be in heaven with Him!
Through Him and not on our own, we can make a huge impact on the kind of stories that our guest writes about. I believe that, do you?
Cyber Pastor
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