Yawn

I've said it before. If you're going to sink your money into a news periodical, invest it in WORLD MAGAZINE (on-line here). It's a good source for news both current and investigative. And the best part, they make no excuses for their bias. Their mission statement (in every issue) is:

"To report, interpret, and illustrate the news in a timely, accurate,
enjoyable, and arresting fashion from a perspective committed to the Bible as
the inerrant Word of God." (You can find more detail here.)

That's the problem with Time, Newsweek, and most the major papers. You keep pleading to the people that you are unbiased while sporting your Obama tattoos and NARAL bumper stickers. Unlike the box of chocolates, with WORLD, you can be pretty sure what you're going to get.

Anyway, to plug WORLD today is not why I write. In the current issue, Joel Belz, WORLD's founder and former publisher, writes about one of his semi-annual straw polls. He takes a pen and pad and toddles to the local Wal-Mart to ask the man on the street some current events questions about a particular issue of the day. His question that day asked whether the respondants would be in favor of or opposed to their state giving married status to homosexual partners. The follow-up asked on what they based their position.

While knowing that the answers he got were not scientific in the least, the answer to the third question he posed to those in favor of homosexual marriage, and really the reason for his asking the other two, left him to suggest "we might all prepare for the thunderous collapse of our society." What was the question?

"Why, based on your justification of homosexual marriage, should (your state)
not also endorse polygamy -- or even the marriage of a man and his very lovable
dog?"

Can you guess the responses? They hadn't really thought about it. When pressed a bit further, Belz came to the conclusion, "It's clear that not a single of the (respondants) had ever once pondered such a matter. But much worse, they didn't care, and nothing I could say even fascinated them with the argument."

Ouch. Much of what is on the table today requires not only rigorous thought but rigorous debate. To have the latter, you must have gone through the former. Consider these:

• How is it we consider a judicial nominee for the Supreme Court when she has suggested that empathy for certain people groups is necessary when administering the rule of law?



• George Tiller is murdered. His murder is barbaric. Why is the media silent about the blood on the man's hand? Would the response be the same if Ahmadinejahd were assassinated by radicals?



• North Korea and Iran, nations who loathe the United States, are on the threshold of deliverable nuclear weapons. What do we do?



• Israel and Palestine. Who do we support?



• Bailout, bailout, bailout. Is this right? What are the consequences of what has been enacted.

Belz asked questions about homosexual unions, but the same can be said about any topic. We have failed to think about issues and have not used moral lenses to examine them. We have failed to do this because we do not care. He concludes:

"The direction of our vapid thoughtlessness is clear; only the speed of its
takeover seems now in question."

Looking back over the last dozen years, I don't think there's any question about the speed. Alas.