Scenario 1: “Q: What’s sandy all over and glows in the dark? A: Iran, if they harm even one of the hostages.” It was 1980. Iran was holding American citizens hostage. Americans! We were high school seniors. Tough guys. If there were a war, we’d be the ones drafted. We made jokes about the possibility of dropping nuclear weapons on Iran and killing millions of people.
Scenario 2: It was ACU basketball’s finest hour. Norman Archibald announced the games in the style of a big-time college announcer. Moody Coliseum would be rocking, especially Section F. The fans in Section F were there to see basketball, but they were especially there to have a good time. They had a wide repertoire of antics: pulling out newspapers to read while opposing players shot free throws, jingling their keys and chanting “Go start the bus!” when ACU was about to win, taunting opposing players when they committed fouls. One favorite was the ceremonial hanging of the referee: raising a doll dressed like an official with a noose around his neck. I found it great fun, until the day my friend Joel Solliday shared his concern: “They’re representing the taking of a human life!”
Scenario 3: Pew Research Report on their Values Survey (2007):
Nearly a quarter of American adults (23%) say they mostly (14%) or completely (9%) agree that American lives are worth more than the lives of people in other countries according to the most recent Pew Social Values Survey; those most likely to take this view include white men (30%), persons ages 18-29 (29%) and self-identified conservative Republicans (28%).
Scenario 4: Mary Elizabeth Williams writes about abortion:
All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.
The basic problem behind many of today’s hot-button issues is that we don’t value human life.
Scenario 5:
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:6–10)
The devaluation of human life is why everything from abortion to war is an acceptable way of life. The objectives of both endeavors become more important than the real human lives that are killed because there is a lack of regard for the sanctity of human life. Only when we learn to see the image of God in every human life…
And when we come to regard every human as the image of God, it not only becomes very difficult – if not impossible – for us to kill by abortion, war-making, etc… but it also changes the way we treat people. Lusting, envying, scorning, cursing, etc… other people for whatever reason is pretty hard to when we see the image of God in those people.