As our society has moved to become more secular, Bible-based values have been put aside. So where are the ethics coming from for students—young people—growing up? Where are their moral values? If you live in a society that is based on situation ethics—if you just do what feels good—who defines morality? Who defines right and wrong? Who determines what a person ought to do or not do?

According to a recent issue of Biblical Archeology Review (November-December 2002), a startling discovery was recently made in Jerusalem. "Amazing as it may sound," the article begins, "a limestone bone box called an ossuary has surfaced in Israel that may once have contained the bones of James, the brother of Jesus. We know this because an extraordinary inscription incised on one side of the ossuary reads in clear Aramaic letters, 'James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.'"

A remarkable change has taken place in western culture, right here in the United States, Britain, Canada and other nations of the western world. That remarkable change has concerned the way that a behavior once viewed universally as a perversion—as an aberration from what is proper and normal—is now taken for granted. In fact, one speaking against homosexuality will often be labeled as some sort of "homophobe" or one who is very intolerant.

Did you realize that there is a "ticking time bomb" in Europe and much of the Western world? That "ticking time bomb"—as it has been called by one prominent German politician—is an incredibly declining Western birth-rate. Replacement level for a population, in terms of demographics, is generally considered about 2.1 children per couple, because not every child that is born lives to adulthood. In Western Europe today, the demographics of reproduction are at about 1.5 or 1.6 children per couple—well below replacement level! In fact, in Germany the rate is just 1.3—as it has been for the last ten years!

Whatever happened to shame? There was a time when immoral conduct brought shame. It brought shame on the family and on the individual. People were ashamed for certain things to be reported, or be known, because of the harm that it did to their reputation. There was a time when public officials caught in scandal would resign and just disappear from public life, because they were so ashamed of what had come out.