June 11, 2012
The June issue of the AFA Journal focuses due attention on how five areas of private sin impacts all of society. This is such an important issue since a very large portion of our society has bought into the idea that “what I do in private has no impact on the public.” This current issue reminds us that it is not true!
The first area the article addresses is pornography. Dr. Jill Manning documents that about 170 million Americans use the Internet and that nearly one-third go online “for sexual purposes.” Her research has also revealed that online sexual activity is “a hidden public health hazard” that is exploding.
Substance abuse is another example of how private sin impacts society. The U.S. Department of Justice has found that more than one-third of convicted felons had been drinking alcohol when they committed their offense. Another study found that more than one-quarter of state and federal drug offenders committed crimes in order to get money to support their drug habits.
A third area is crime in general. The statistics are staggering. The National Center for Victims of Crime estimates that just three areas (robberies, arson, and Internet fraud) cost us more than $1.6 trillion.
Abortion is a fourth area. Pro-choice advocates say that it shouldn’t matter to society what a women does with her body. Apart from the obvious moral objections to abortion are the social and economic costs. As one expert from the National Right to Life observed, “You can’t lose fifty-three million lives and not expect it to have a serious economic impact.”
A final area documented in the article is fatherlessness. U. S. Ambassador Gregory Slayton has been on my radio program a number of times and documents the social and economic impact of fatherless homes. The estimated price tag for fatherhood failure is more than a trillion dollars over the last decade alone.
These few examples show the error in believing that private sin has no impact on society. We are paying a huge cost for people’s sin. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.