School shooting

Tragic as it is, the massacre of innocents in Newtown, Conn., is only the latest in an epidemic of killing sprees affecting America. Equally tragic, it will not be the last.

This is one symptom of a society that increasingly experiences the removal from our society of the Judeo/Christian ethic on which America was built. Many of those who choose to believe there is no God are not satisfied with their right to that belief; they insist on eliminating faith in society at large and, to a large degree, they are succeeding.

When the existence of a divine Creator is removed from the public consciousness, human beings — like mice or cockroaches — become simple biological accidents of a random universe, without purpose or intrinsic value.

The belief that God created man in His own image creates in us a belief that we humans are not only intrinsically valuable, but — as God’s children — sacred. This belief forms the theological foundation for the moral imperative that one human being must not kill another human being.

Lacking that moral foundation, a few in our society see killing fellow humans as no more consequential than stepping on cockroaches. There are consequences to actions that we take, individually and societally.

Those of us who believe in a God believe that life is sacred, believe there is a purpose to our lives, believe that we must cherish and protect life — we have a responsibility to stand up for our faith and rekindle our moral heritage.

Don Sullivan

Polebridge