Educating Students in New Gomorrah

We continue slouching towards Gomorrah [emphasis added]. We are well along the road to the moral chaos that is the end of radical individualism and the tyranny that is the goal of radical egalitarianism. Modern liberalism has corrupted our culture across the board. The imperative question is whether there is any possibility of avoiding the condition of Gomorrah. What can halt or reverse the march of modern liberalism? What can keep us from reaching a servile condition punctuated by spasms of violence and eroticism?1

We are no longer slouching towards Gomorrah. We have arrived.

Consider our moral decent as reflected in the two photographs below. The first shows a nation that is unashamed of its Christian heritage. The second depicts a nation rejecting that heritage and, in its place, the proud promotion of perversion.

Buildings with lighted crosses to honor Good Friday in April 1956. Left to right: 60 Wall Tower, 20 Exchange Place (formerly known as City Bank Farmers Trust Co.) and 40 Wall Street. Photo taken on April 5, 1956. (Ed Peters/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

Empire State Building website, c. 2014.

Illuminated with the colors of the pride flag, the Empire State Building proudly proclaims the perverse moral darkness that has descended on our nation, corrupting our national soul and wreaking havoc on millions of lives.

In New Gomorrah, there are few moral anchors. The idea of moral anchors is anathema in this city. It is a city filled with foolishness, chaos, violence, moral lasciviousness, and perversion. What was once shameful and hidden is now loudly and proudly promoted by the evangelists of evil (Romans 1:32).

The profane spectacle at RuPaul’s Drag Convention, attended by young children, is a perfect example of New Gomorrah. Children mingling around the convention could visit booths like those sponsored by the spiked-collar company “BitchFist NYC” and the lubricant company “Boy Butter.” In a video posted to social media, the song lyrics “I’m horny all night long” could be heard playing in the background.2 Though this particular convention was held in the UK, similar conventions are held in the US.3

People in drag clothing attend RuPaul's DragCon UK at the Excel Centre in London, January 7, 2023. (Henry Nicholls/Reuters)

Our decadence is not restricted to Drag Conventions. A Kirkwood High School (Kirkwood, MO) yearbook showed pictures of condoms and asked students, “For the weirdest place you’ve hooked up.” Student answers included: “Altered State dressing room in the West County Mall and the football field between two field hockey goals.”

It is bad enough that students felt no shame in publishing the material; what is far worse is school administrators' indifference and passive approval. When asked about the material in the yearbook, the school district responded:

Kirkwood High School has a longstanding tradition of allowing student media to be designated public forums. This practice has led to the Kirkwood High School journalism program being one of 16 programs in the country announced by the Journalism Education Association, National Scholastic Press Association, and Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society as a First Amendment Press Freedom Award school for 2023. As school officials do not engage in prior review, the content of KHS Media is determined by and reflects only the views of the student staff and not school officials or the school itself.4

In other words, the awards won are most important than the character of its students. One wonders if they would have taken such a nonchalant stance had students promoted opposition to policies promoting gender identity and LGBTQ+ lifestyles. The answer is no. They would have expressed outrage and censored the students.

Pornography in children’s books

In New Gomorrah, adults defend, even promote, access to pornographic material in schools. Consider former President Obama's statement in a public letter denouncing the “profoundly misguided” attempts to ban books in libraries nationwide.

Today, some of the books that shaped my life – and the lives of so many others – are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives. It’s no coincidence that these ‘banned books’ are often written by or feature people of color, indigenous people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community,” the former president wrote.

As reported by National Review, Obama's comments come amid a wave of parent concern over the addition of highly sexualized content to public school libraries.

Much of the concern has focused on the book Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, an LGBT book that has been introduced to elementary and middle-school students around the country. The book, which received the 2020 American Library Association's Alex Award, includes erotic scenes of men having sex, illustrations of minors performing oral sex, and a drawing of a man masturbating a young boy's penis.

School districts from Alaska to Florida pulled the book off the shelf following community pushback. Meanwhile, Kobabe insists the book is suitable for younger audiences. "It's very hard to hear people say 'This book is not appropriate to young people'…There are people for whom this is vital and for whom this could maybe even be lifesaving," the author told NBC News.5

The Slavery and Savagery of Secularism

We are entering a new era in which there is not only no social benefit to being Christian, but an actual social cost. In many places, culture is becoming increasingly hostile toward faith, and beliefs in God, truth, sin, and the afterlife are disappearing in more and more people. Now, culture is producing people for whom Christianity is not only offensive, but incomprehensible. — Tim Keller6

Indeed.

Like a tsunami crashing into the coast and destroying everything in its path, secularization has crashed onto our shores, submerging us under a toxic mix of violence, intellectual and moral confusion, loneliness, mental illness, addiction, and decay. The late Cardinal George Pell pulled no punches in describing the devastating impact of secularism:

This truth has gone unsaid for too long. Secularism is an inferior culture, small of heart ... The secularists are wreckers and they are busy at work ... Chaos is the main characteristic of the way of life the secularist wreckers are imposing upon us, not liberation [emphasis added].7

We have raised our national fist to the face of God and declared that we want nothing to do with him or his word. But God was not joking when he declared that we will reap what we sow. (Galatians 6:7ff).

The fruit of our sin is rotten and horrible.

Mental Anguish and Suicide

According to the Academy of Pediatrics, by 2018, suicide was the second leading cause of death for youth ages 10-24. Don’t let a statistic numb you. Young people are killing themselves. From 2018 to 2019, 18.8% of adolescents aged 12-17 seriously considered attempting suicide, 8.9% attempted suicide, 5.7% made a suicide plan, 15.1% had a major depressive episode, and 36.7% had persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.8

This is a damning commentary on our nation.

Entertained by Violence

Our screens are filled with violence, and our children are constantly in front of screens. In The Most Surprising Violence In Entertainment Statistics and Trends in 2023, Gitnux reports that “U.S. youths … are exposed to 2,000 acts of violence annually…by the time an average child leaves elementary school, they will have seen 8,000 murders on television … In popular movies, violence represents 33% of all scenes.” The relationship between entertainment and physical aggression and violence is well documented: “Exposure to violent entertainment at a young age increases aggression and antisocial behavior by 10% … more than 1,000 studies have demonstrated a correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior.9

Raising children on a steady diet of violence leads to acts of violence, as surely as feeding them junk food leads to obesity. Let me be clear; our children are immersed in this violence because we permit them to watch it and because money is more important to the entertainment industry than the welfare of our children. As we are told by Paul: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils (1 Timothy 6:10).

From Bullies to Barbarians

I vividly remember the larger-than-life bully determined to beat me up after school. He was always lurking around the bus stop waiting for an opportunity to pounce. I learned quickly to take an alternative route to the bus stop, appearing only at the last moment to leap onto the bus to avoid my tormentor.

My experience with a bully was challenging, but nothing compared to the emotional and psychological torment experienced by today’s children. While there may be the occasional school-yard encounter with a bully, cyberbullying is far more prevalent and pernicious. Hiding cowardly behind a screen, today’s cyberbullies prey on their victims 24 hours a day. There are no geographical barriers. Children carry their omnipresent tormentors in their pockets. And they are nasty. Cyberbullies attack their victims like wolves circling their prey in ravaging online packs. It can be devastating to young people.

Bullies are bad; barbarians are worse.

A bully habitually seeks to harm or intimidate those they perceive as vulnerable. A barbarian is a depraved bully. Bullies are mean. Barbarians are uncivilized, uncultured, uncaring, uncontrolled, cruel, savage, and brutal. Barbarians are “foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless (Romans 1:31). Barbarians have shallow and seared consciences.

Barbarism is on the rise. Consider recent events in Chicago, where teenagers terrorized the city. Writing for Fox News, Michael Lee reported that,

Hundreds of teenagers stormed the streets of downtown Chicago, smashing car windows, attacking bystanders and sending panicked tourists running from the sound of gunfire … Some teens in the group began jumping up and down on cars, smashing windows and attacking people inside. One woman told Fox 32 her husband was attacked from the driver side of his vehicle and beaten after a group of teens jumped up and down on the couple's windshield … "I understand kids having a good time, but this is simply bad parenting," the Chicago native witness told Fox 32. "We have to do better as parents. Our kids should not be out here."10

School Killing Fields

Bullies torment their victims. Barbarians kill them.

It happened again, this time at a small Christian elementary school. On March 27, 2023, three students and three adults were shot and killed at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. As of that date, this was the deadliest school shooting at a U.S. K-12 school since May 2022, when an 18-year-old former student shot and killed 19 students and two teachers at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school.

Killing children in school is one horrible evil amid a rising tide of violence and disregard for human life. As depicted in this table, violence and killing continue to increase.11

We have become, as Elizabeth Bruenig of The Atlantic so aptly put it, “a society of fear.”12 We live in a society permeated with fear and suspicion.

Worse, we are becoming numb to the violence. While we recoil at the evil,  unless we are personally touched by it, we read the dreadful headline of another mass shooting and move on with our lives with a shrug of dull resignation of the inevitability of it all.

Claiming to be Wise, They Became Fools13

Our language reveals a great deal about us. Jesus said, “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person” (Matthew 15:18). What is true of the individual is true of culture. Consider the sheer foolishness reflected in the guidelines given to Portland City employees by The Office of Equity and Human Rights in its Inclusive Writing Guide. The guide suggests not to use words such as “women,” “Caucasian,” or “citizen." It also suggested replacing “pregnant women” with “pregnant people,” and instead of “women’s health rights,” say “reproductive rights”; instead of “feminine hygiene products,” say “menstrual products or period products,” and instead of “breastfeeding,” say “chest feeding.” Moreover, rather than use “he” or “she” pronouns to describe people, staffers are encouraged to use “they/them.” Because the word “manhole” is not gender-neutral, it is replaced by “maintenance hole.”14

Indeed Paul’s description of the Gentiles of his time describes the citizens of New Gomorrah:

No longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity (Ephesians 4:17–19).

This is New Gomorrah.

How We Built New Gomorrah

New Gomorrah has been long in the making.

There is much blame to go around. The secularization of American culture, entertainment of all types saturated with violence, promiscuity, and perversion, progressive policies propagated through our institutions of learning, morally bankrupt politicians across the political spectrum, and other causes too numerous to mention.

While the causes of our moral decadence are multiple, complex, and intertwined, there are three foundational causes: The failure to educate for virtue, bad parenting, and the destruction of the American family. An editorial in the Dallas Morning News sums up our failures well:

We have to ask ourselves what we are teaching our children about the value of human life, about its precious nature, about the way taking a life is the deepest offense one human can commit against another. Are we providing our children with the ethical foundation they need to recognize the ineffable, irreparable pain and loss that killing causes? The popular culture certainly is not. It is enthralled with the stupid glorification of violence. Guns are symbols of power; violence is the expression of power. We need to make sure that children are given messages that run counter to these themes. If parents won't teach them, schools must. An ethic of the value of every life, of the unique dignity of each person, is essential to confronting the horrible, nihilistic paths that lead young people to decide that killing is an answer to their own torments. What is broken will take a long time to fix because what is broken is us [emphasis added].15

“What is broken is us.”

We have been broken since Adam’s and Eve’s rebellion in the Garden of Eden. What is different today is that we are failing to ameliorate the damage by laying the foundations to civilize children capable of building and sustaining a civil society. Admittedly, parents and educators have a difficult job raising and educating countercultural children. Our entertainment, news, and tech industries are spewing forth a tsunami of violence and perversion that submerge our children in polluted cultural water foaming with immorality, violence, anger, and hatred. But just because something is difficult is never an excuse for not fulfilling our duty as parents and educators.

Failure To Educate For Virtue

The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honorable but grievous and toilsome; and that the pleasure of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion...I am much more certain...that true education...will have the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize the student in their relations to one another. —Plato16

As hard as it may be to teach virtue to our children, it is nevertheless our sacred duty. Sadly, we are derelict. We are failing to civilize and humanize students in their relations to one another.

We teach our children how to make a decent living but not how to live decently. We teach them how to make babies but not how to create stable marriages. We teach them how to negotiate the deal but not how to negotiate the rapids of their vices. We teach them how to dress for success but leave them morally naked. We teach them how to build companies but not how to build a good country. We teach them to be true to themselves but not how to be truthful. Echoing similar concerns, Albert Mohler writes:

We want character but without unyielding conviction; we want strong morality, but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame; we want virtue but without particular moral justifications that invariably offend; we want good without having to name evil; we want decency without the moral authority to insist upon it; we want moral community without any limitations to personal freedom. In short, we want what we cannot have on the terms that we want it.17

Our failure produces disrespectful, unruly, undisciplined, ill-mannered, entitled, and increasingly violent children and adults. We are raising what Dr. Muller of John Hopkins University describes as “highly skilled barbarians“18 —functionally literate students who are morally and ethically bankrupt.

George Washington and John Adams both warned long ago of the danger of neglecting religious and moral instruction:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness …And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.19 —George Washington

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."20 —John Adams

The strength and character of our nation depend on the strength and character of our citizenry. Tragically, we have rejected the warnings of our forefathers and have not preserved the personal and civic virtues bequeathed to us. In speaking of Rome’s ruin, Saint Augustine perfectly describes our neglect:

But our age, receiving the republic as a chef-d'oeuvre [a masterpiece] of another age which has already begun to grow old, has not merely neglected to restore the colors of the original, but has not even been at the pains to preserve so much as the general outline and most outstanding features. For what survives of that primitive morality which the poet called Rome's safeguard? It is so obsolete and forgotten, that, far from practicing it, one does not even know it …

And of the citizens what shall I say? Morality has perished through poverty of great men; a poverty for which we must not only assign a reason, but for the guilt of which we must answer as criminals charged with a capital crime. For it is through our vices, and not by any mishap, that we retain only the name of a republic, and have long since lost the reality …

At present I speak of the decay of morality, which at first almost imperceptibly lost its brilliant hue, but afterwards was wholly obliterated, was swept away as by a torrent, and involved the republic in such disastrous ruin, that though the houses and walls remained standing, the leading writers do not scruple to say that the republic was destroyed. 21—St. Augustine The City of God

Passive and Permissive Parenting

Passive and permissive parenting is the root of our problem. By passive, I mean Christian parents who do not take seriously their biblical mandate to systematically and consistently teach the Bible to their children (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).22 Few Christian families have family devotions and increasingly skip church to sleep in or to participate in athletic or other activities. According to the Barna Group, “Fewer than one out of ten born-again families read the Bible together during a typical week or pray together during a typical week.”23 The Pew Research Center reports the frequency of Bible reading among adults.

We are raising biblically illiterate children with shallow souls. Our neglect destroys the family, harms the church, and undermines our country's moral and civic fabric. As Thomas Manton poignantly writes in his introduction to the Westminster Confession of Faith:

A family is the seminary of Church and State; and if children be not well principled there, all miscarries: a fault in the first concoction is not mended in the second; if youth be bred ill in the family, they prove ill in Church and Commonwealth [emphasis added].25

Divorce and the Destruction of the American Family

Sadly, divorce among those who profess to be born-again is not statistically different from the general population. According to Barna:

Among adults who have been married, the study discovered that one-third (33%) have experienced at least one divorce. That means that among all Americans 18 years of age or older, whether they have been married or not, 25% have gone through a marital split.

Born-again Christians who are not evangelical were indistinguishable from the national average on the matter of divorce: 33% have been married and divorced. The survey did not determine if the divorce occurred before or after the person had become born again. However, previous research by Barna has shown that less than two out of every ten people who accept Christ as their savior do so after their first marriage.

In fact, when evangelicals and non-evangelical born-again Christians are combined into an aggregate class of born-again adults, their divorce figure is statistically identical to that of non-born-again adults: 32% versus 33%, respectively.26

What Can School Leaders Do?

Start with a Healthy Dose of Humility

The place to start is with humility. Most Christian schools have rather grandiose mission statements about changing the world. While laudable, the truth is that our schools are not likely to “change the world.” Lord willing, our schools are being used by the Lord to change individual lives, which, as pebbles dropped into the water, will ripple outward to change the lives of others and make our communities better. But, cultural change is far too complex with too many influential people and institutions to suppose that Christian schools are numerous enough and influential enough to “change the world.” The sad truth is that, too often, the world is changing us. As Andy Crouch has so honestly acknowledged:

Indeed, the great irony with the North American Christian community's obsession with becoming world changers, as outsiders like Alan Wolfe and insiders like Ron Sider have documented, is that so far and on the whole we are much more changed than changing. The rise of interest in cultural transformation has been accompanied by a rise in cultural transformation of a different sort the transformation of the church into the culture's image [emphasis added].27

While it is unlikely that the Christian school movement will “change the world,” we can, by God’s grace, change lives, and those lives can, in turn, change their worlds, their spheres of influence and impact as they graduate, start careers and families, and serve in the church. We may not change the world, but we can change individual worlds.

Pray

This is not a cliche; it is an absolute necessity. For too long, we have labored under the proud delusion that electing the right people to office, engaging in cultural warfare, and teaching a worldview to our students will “change the world.” While these efforts are laudable and necessary, they haven’t and won’t change the world. Our cultural warfare may win a political skirmish here or there, but it will not win our culture. The fact is that we have become New Gomorrah despite our cultural warfare. This is not to say that engaging in politics, confronting evil, and promoting good is unimportant. Doing so is vital and godly.

But fundamentally, our battle is not political; it is spiritual. Political weapons cannot fight spiritual battles. As Paul tells us, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). Prayerless fighting will always end in ultimate defeat. This is why Paul tells us to pray for those in authority (1 Timothy 2:1–4).

When did you last pray for government officials, including those from the “opposition party?”

Share the Gospel

The Gospel, not our political battles, will change the world. Again, proper political engagement is good and necessary—but it is not sufficient. It is the Gospel that changes lives and nations. This is why the last words of Jesus were the Great Commission.

When did you last sit down with someone to share the Gospel?

We will not save our country if we are not saving souls.

Help Students Realize They Are in New Gomorrah

This is more challenging than it sounds. Like the air we breathe, we absorb a culture’s zeitgeist. Zeitgeist refers to the “spirit of the age,” the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate in a specific place at a particular time in a culture’s history. It encompasses the collective thoughts, ideas, attitudes, and beliefs that define a period and place's social, political, and cultural atmosphere.

Our students did not travel to New Gomorrah; they were born into it. They are citizens of New Gomorrah by birth, not immigrants from another time. They know no other city. Everything in New Gomorrah appears normal because they have never lived in a different city with a different zeitgeist. Because they are young, they have limited experience and perspective to judge the goings on in their city. To them, everything is as it always had been and should be. It is like the Febreze commercial about being “nose-blind”; they can’t smell the stinky cultural socks. 

Video Link: https://youtu.be/wRaMyTqN4eU

To overcome their cultural nose-blindness, our students need the “Febreze” of the Bible. They need to be shown—in concrete form—what should be in contrast to what is and helped to understand that what is proclaimed“normal” is abnormal and perverse. They need to see that at one time, we lit our buildings with crosses, not Pride flags. They need to see from whence we’ve come so they can see how far we have traveled in the wrong direction. They need to read, understand, and heed the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. They need to be trained to be thoughtful critiques of culture, not merely imbibers of it.

Educate for Virtue, Not Just a Worldview

Our students need a biblical worldview, but they desperately need Christian virtue. A Covenant College professor was fond of saying that “the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.” Thinking biblically is critically important but not sufficient. It is too easy for professing Christians to parrot biblical truth while living contrary to it. James warns us against hearing the Word but not obeying it. It is the doing that demonstrates the authenticity of saving faith.

Sadly, the distance between the professed faith of many Christians and their character is vast. Gossip, slander, backbiting, bullying, lying, cheating, immorality, drunkenness, abortion, pornography, materialism, rudeness, unbiblical divorce, pride, and other vices are prevalent in the Christian community and our Christian schools.

We will never be sinless on this side of heaven, but we desperately need to sin less. Our accommodation of sin is sucking life out of our spiritual power and destroying our Christian witness. How can we expect to change the world when we can’t change our lives and families and when too many students, families, and employees consistently, willfully, and unrepentantly sin?

We need to be honest with ourselves and our students. Following Christ is costly. It means that we are called to live contrary to the prevailing zeitgeist. It means we will be attacked, ridiculed, canceled, and worse. Following Christ, not just a worldview, means we must die to ourselves. It means we need to sell success less and sell sanctification more. This means that the way we live our lives, what we teach, and the policies we develop and enforce should promote and cultivate the Fruit of the Spirt:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:16ff).

Double Down on Teaching the Bible

I was dismayed.

I had written three themes to guide our strategic plan. I was particularly pleased with one of the themes: "Create exceptional and unique world-class programs to develop our young men and women to reflect the intellectual and spiritual virtues of Daniel and Ester.” I was thinking to myself, “This is great! We need more Daniels and Esters!”

I shared my theme with my senior team members, expecting an enthusiastic response. Instead, though they agreed with the goal, they told me that too few in our school community would understand the significance of developing modern Daniels and Esters. They argued persuasively that most would have no idea who Ester was. If they knew anything about Daniel, it would be that he’d been thrown into some fiery furnace and a den of lions. Most would be clueless regarding his impact in Babylon and, therefore, unable to connect Daniel’s and Ester’s, lives with our strategic plan.

This lack of biblical knowledge is not unique to my school. It is, with rare exception, the sad situation in most of our schools. Members of our community may or may not have a Sunday School-level acquaintance with Daniel and Ester, but few have a deep understanding of how Daniel and Ester can be models for us in our present cultural circumstances.

Given the lack of Bible reading, we cannot assume any level of biblical literacy. We must begin with the basics and build from there. This means that our curriculum, even at the high school level, should include courses in fundamental biblical theology and New and Old Testament survey courses. Moreover, our communications should consistently reference relevant biblical principles and verses, effectively using our communications to teach biblical truth to our communities.

Double Down on Staff Training in Theology

Like everyone else, faculty and staff are also subject to the proverbial Frog in the Kettle Syndrome. It is a dangerous mistake to assume that all employees have a consistent biblical worldview and that they are not being influenced by the cultural air they breathe.  Accordingly, school leaders must have a systematic onboarding program consisting of biblical training for all new professional staff and ongoing multi-year, scaffolded training in biblical theology. Jesus said the would. If we want our students to have a biblical worldview, we must ensure their teachers have not compromised theirs.

Conclusion

We are educating students in New Gomorrah. The flag of perversion flies high throughout the city. They live in a city where its citizens “call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! ... who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! … who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink (Isaiah 5:20–22).

God’s people have often lived in Gomorrah. In many ways, we are like Lot, who was “greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard (2 Peter 2:7–8). Though we are rightly troubled by the sin around us and weep for our children, we do not despair! We place our hope in a sovereign God who “turns [the heart of the king] wherever he will (Proverbs 21:1). We rest in the promise that “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials (2 Peter 2:9).

Humility, prayer, sharing the gospel, helping students recognize New Gomorrah, educating for virtue, and teaching the Bible to students, staff, and parents are not simple throw-away cliches. They compose the foundation for revival and reformation. They are, in fact, the very essence of the Great Commission:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:18-20).

_____________________________

References

1 Robert H. Bork. 2003. Slouching Towards Gomorrah:. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

2 Caroline Downey. 2023. Videos Show Young Children Attending RuPaul’s Drag Convention. National Review. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/videos-show-young-children-attending-rupauls-drag-convention/

3 https://la.rupaulsdragcon.com

4 Elyse Schoenig. 2023. Kirkwood High School yearbook sparks controversy. 5 ON YOUR SIDE. https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/kirkwood-high-school-yearbook-controversy/63-a55e42b9-fd05-4433-ae45-acab3069f320

5 Ari Blaff. 2023. Obama Condemns ‘Profoundly Misguided’ Book Bans in Letter to Nation’s Librarians. National Review. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/obama-condemns-profoundly-misguided-book-bans-in-letter-to-nations-librarians/

6 Keller, T. (2020). How to Reach the West (Again). The Gospel Coalition. Retrieved May 15 from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-to-reach-the-west-again/

7 Lopez, Kathryn Jean. 2023. Cardinal George Pell and the Need for Christianity in the World Today. National Review. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/cardinal-george-pell-and-the-need-for-christianity-in-the-world-today/

8 CDCgov (2023). Data and Statistics on Children's Mental Health | CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/data.html

9 The Most Surprising Violence In Entertainment Statistics And Trends in 2023 • GITNUX. (2023, 2023-04-05). Gitnux. Retrieved April 10, 2023 from https://blog.gitnux.com/violence-in-entertainment-statistics/

10 Lee, M. (2023, 2023-04-16). ‘Teen Takeover’ terrorizes Chicago as hundreds of teenagers destroy property, attack tourists. Fox News. Retrieved April 16 from https://www.foxnews.com/us/teen-takeover-terrorizes-chicago-hundreds-children-destroy-property-attack-tourists

11 Gun Violence Archive. (2023). @GunDeaths. Retrieved May 7 from https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

12 Elizabeth Bruenig. 2023. A Country Governed by Fear: How America became a violent society. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/new-york-subway-chokehold-death-mental-illness/673950/?utmsource=applenews

13 Romans 1:22

14 Spady, A. (2023, 2023-07-07). Portland city govt tells staff to avoid mentioning 'pregnant women' and 'citizens' in woke language directive. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/portland-city-govt-tells-staff-avoid-mentioning-pregnant-women-citizens-woke-language-directive

15 Killing at Lamar High School, shooting at Thomas Jefferson will change nothing. (2023, 2023-03-22). Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2023/03/22/murder-at-lamar-high-school-will-change-nothing/

16 Plato. (2021). The Republic. Classic Books by Kathartika.

17 Mohler, A. (2012). The conviction to lead. Baker Books. https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=CydD3Sv9z3oC&source=gbsapi

18 Michael Buckley, S. J. (1982). The university and the concern for justice: The search for a new humanism. Thought, 2023(April 10, 2023). https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/offices/mission/pdf1/cu23.pdf

19 A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. (n.d.). The Online Books Page. https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/metabook?id=mppresidents

20 Shaw, H. M. (Ed.). (1848). Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull. New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company.

21 Augustine, Saint. 2004. The City of God. Digireads.com Publishing.

22 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

23 George Barna. 2010. Revolutionary Parenting: What the Research Shows Really Works. Tyndale Momentum, cited in n.d.. Introduction to Family Devotions. The Disciple-Making Parent. https://www.thedisciplemakingparent.com/introduction-to-family-devotions/

24 Religious Landscape Study. (n.d.). Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/ It should be noted that Bible reading among self-identified evangelicals is, as would be expected and hoped, higher than the general population.

25McMahon, C. Matthew, and Therese B. McMahon. The 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith. 3rd ed. Crossville, TN: Puritan Publications, 2014.

26 Group, B. (2008). New Marriage and Divorce Statistics Released. Barna Group. Retrieved April 14 from https://www.barna.com/research/new-marriage-and-divorce-statistics-released/

27 Crouch, Andy. 2013. Culture making. InterVarsity Press.

28 If they are believers, they are pilgrims of Gomorrah and citizens of God’s kingdom.