Moral Decadence

J.J. Jasper is the host of a radio program for American Family Radio. The following letter was posted on his blog. It is from a listener from Branson, MO.

"While I was visiting the Ukraine, our group had the opportunity to tour six prisons, speak to large groups of inmates and have meetings through the country with prison administrators. The goal of our visit was to educate prison authorities of the importance of faith-based programs in the prisons. At each correctional facility, we began by meeting with the warden. At one of the units, a warden, after learning that I had 25 years of experience in corrections, asked me a challenging question. He asked, “As great as the United States is, why do you incarcerate more men and women than any country in the world?” I felt that I had to answer him honestly and frankly. I shared that I believed our prison population is a reflection of our society. I explained by saying that we have had a breakdown of the home; for example: divorce, domestic and child abuse, etc. We have removed Bible study and prayer from our schools. We have permitted abortions any time, any place and under almost any circumstances. We are permitting same sex marriages. We promote violence through our media outlets. Pornography is a billion dollar a year industry in our country. After these brief statements to this warden, I concluded by saying that it is no surprise that we incarcerate more people than any other country. I restated that our prison population is a reflection of our moral breakdown in society. He surprised me when he responded by saying, “That is what I thought [too]. I was just wondering if that is what you believed.”

Isn't it interesting that there are those in other parts of the world that know our problem better than we do? Sometimes we "can't see the forest for the trees."