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Thrill killers, the ACLU, Benjamin Spock, and C. S. Lewis

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : September 13, 2013
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Category: Archives, Culture Wars, Worldview

Two young men and their driver (all ages 15 to 17) residing in a small rural town in southern Oklahoma allegedly killed a twenty-two year old college student from Australia by shooting him in the back while he jogged down a road. The only motive mentioned by one of the alleged perpetrators was “boredom”. Within a week another random attack killed an 88-year-old World War II veteran in Spokane, Washington. The two 16-year-old killers’ only motive was robbery. The man was only slightly above five feet tall and died of severe head injuries. What threat could this diminutive 88-year old man have posed to cause the 16-year-olds to beat him to death? These are but two instances among hundreds if not thousands occurring in the United States each year.

Few people in America are unaware of the recent spate of so-called “thrill killings” in various parts of the country. Headlines blaze and talk shows buzz. People shake their heads and use adjectives such as “senseless, heatless, and soulless.” The first reaction to these irrational takings of human life is incomprehension, then anger. We wonder why all of this […] Continue Reading…


The Baby Veronica Case: Symptom of America’s eroding central cultural vision

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : September 6, 2013
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Category: Archives, Culture Wars

Veronica is the little four-year-old girl who is at the center of an epic custody battle between her South Carolina adoptive parents and her biological father. A member of the Cherokee Tribe, the father agreed to give custody to the birth mother four months after Veronica’s birth but claims he had not known the birth mother had placed her up for adoption. The adoptive parents raised Veronica from her birth in 2009 to December 2011 when the biological father won custody from a South Carolina Court under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 which gives a tribe the right to intervene in custody cases of children with any degree of Indian blood. However, in June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that that the Indian Child Welfare Act didn’t automatically guarantee the father custody. The South Carolina Supreme Court took custody away from the father and gave it to the adoptive parents. The South Carolina Court issued an order for the father to surrender custody immediately after he failed to bring Veronica to a court-ordered visitation with the adoptive parents. The child was never surrendered to the adoptive parents and remains […] Continue Reading…


What is your purpose in life? – Part II

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : August 30, 2013
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Category: Archives, Equality

In Part I we described man’s purpose in life from the perspective of the two dominant combatants in the culture wars. One is the biblical worldview of Christianity upon whose principles the nation was founded and governed for 150 years. The other has been described as the official religion of America—humanism. So how do these competing worldviews define man’s purpose? The humanistic vision of the purpose of man is based on the exaltation of the individual, is inward-looking, denies the role of God in man’s purpose, and whose centerpiece is a vague, undefined egalitarianism focused on equality of outcome. Christianity’s view of man’s purpose is rooted in relationship, is outward-looking, and is defined by those timeless truths which are revealed in the Bible.

The exaltation of the individual and denial of the Creator are found in the elemental tenets of humanism, and we need only look to Humanist Manifesto II for affirmation. “The ultimate goal should be fulfillment of the potential growth in each human personality… We can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species.” [Humanist Manifestos I and II, pp. 14, 16.]

The battle between the humanistic and biblical […] Continue Reading…


What is your purpose in life? – Part I

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : August 23, 2013
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Category: Archives, Equality

Some may suggest this is a silly or trivial question. For those that attempt to answer, the variety of responses will likely be as numerous as people responding. Many consider life meaningless (and by implication hopeless). Others focus their answers on themselves, e.g., their purpose is to survive whether in a primitive society (kill or be killed) or the modern (the 8 to 5 so-called rat race of working to provide the necessities of life). But these answers are inadequate and do not speak to the fundamental question that every one of us must answer.

Man is a special being, if for no reason other than he is the only creature to ask why he is here. That very question presupposes his denial that he owes his existence to some fantastically improbable celestial and biological crap shoot. Man senses his specialness and cannot abide nothingness as the reason for his existence. He looks at himself and sees faint images of something far greater, and he is compelled to search for answers as to the meaning and purpose of his life. He yearns to be something above what he sees in the natural world. Unique to the […] Continue Reading…


Progressivism’s Fatal Flaw

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : August 16, 2013
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Category: Archives, Progressivism

Liberalism as we know it came of age in the nineteenth century and was a product of the Enlightenment, that skeptical and revolutionary humanistic cultural tradition that emanated from eighteenth century Western Europe which “…promoted the belief that critical and autonomous human reason held the power to discover the truth about life and the world, and to progressively liberate humanity from the ignorance and injustices of the past.” [Smith, p. 54.]

For the humanist-liberal-progressive, man is continuously perfectible, a process whereby he will become progressively better and better. Progress is possible because man is not fallen and does not need redemption. Therefore, humanists assert there is no limit to the perfecting of the powers of man other than the duration of the globe upon which nature has spawned us.

Progressives believe that through human reason alone, truth about life and the world can be discovered and pave the way to liberate humanity from ignorance and injustice. How is this to be achieved? Perfect justice, prosperity, and equality are possible if enlightened elites are given the power to organize and run society according to scientific knowledge about human nature and behavior.

Therefore, in the humanist worldview, the […] Continue Reading…