No king in Israel

Paris has three chefs for every lawyer, but Washington, D.C., has 15 lawyers for every chef, according to the N58 Policy Research website. No wonder our laws are increasingly unpalatable. The nation’s capital also has 10 economists for every member of the clergy, yet our national debt has risen to $21 trillion, and some of our baby boomer financial wizards say it doesn’t matter—but it will to our children and grandchildren.

What else doesn’t matter to some now-notorious boomers? Close to 4 million dead babies, according to Cecile Richards, 60, who confirmed on Jan. 26 her retirement from the Planned Parenthood presidency after 12 years. In the ninth grade Richards wore a black armband to protest the Vietnam War, but in late January she said leading an organization that aborts more than 300,000 children per year was “the honor of my lifetime.” At least she’s had a lifetime.

What else didn’t matter to Rep. Patrick Meehan, 62? The married Republican, a member of—hold the laughter—the House Ethics Committee, wanted to be romantically and perhaps sexually involved with a much-younger aide. He then used thousands of taxpayer dollars to hush up the matter. But it all came out, and on Jan. 25 he acknowledged he had acted “selfishly,” would not run for reelection, and had used the money of others because House attorneys said that was regular practice. Oh.

What else didn’t matter to USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar, 54—until he had to listen to 156 women and girls day after day testify to his face in court that he had sexually abused them over the past two decades? Nassar had written that he was “manipulated” into pleading guilty, for “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” After his week-long foretaste of Hell—unless he truly repents—Nassar seemed shaken, saying on Jan. 24, “I will carry your words with me for the rest of my days”—which will be spent in prison.

What do those three events have in common, other than that they occurred on three successive days? The thrice-repeated refrain in the Old Testament book of Judges is haunting: “In those days there was no king in Israel.” The last sentence of the book reads, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

A present-day Samuel might write about our time, “In those days 88 percent of American households had a Bible. Some said they had six copies. Most said they read them rarely, if at all. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

In Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians & Fractured American Politics (Basic, 2017), R. Marie Griffith shows WORLD’s Sept. 17, 2016, cover—the Grim Reaper wears an “I’m with her” button—and notes how it shows “Hillary Clinton and her pro-choice supporters to be agents of death.” That’s true, and although pro-choice is a misnomer for supporters of abortion—dead preborn babies had no choice—it may be true generally: Adultery, abuse, and abortion all spread when everyone does what is right in his own eyes.

But in late January we could also remember past heroes, such as missionaries who died during the Viet Cong’s Tet Offensive that began on Jan. 30, 1968. (Communist soldiers lost that battle 50 years ago but won the media war.) Career missionary Reg Reimer recalls his sad discovery: “We pulled back the body bag and there was the body of our colleague Ed Thompson, with his arms wrapped around his wife below him, and a row of bullet holes right down the middle of his back.” Thompson’s crime: He wanted people to read the Bible and do what’s right in God’s eyes.

We also learned about current heroines like Rachael Denhollander, the first to allege publicly that Nassar was a child molester. Judge Rosemarie Aquilina told her, “You started the tidal wave. … You are the bravest person I’ve ever had in my courtroom.” After 155 other survivors had said their piece, Denhollander had the last, eloquent word, based on her observation that Nassar had brought a Bible into the courtroom:

“If you have read the Bible you carry, you know the definition of sacrificial love portrayed is of God Himself loving so sacrificially that He gave up everything to pay a penalty for the sin He did not commit. … Should you ever reach the point of truly facing what you have done, the guilt will be crushing. And that is what makes the gospel of Christ so sweet. Because it extends grace and hope and mercy where none should be found. … I pray you experience the soul-crushing weight of guilt so you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God.”

Does everyone do what is right in his own eyes? Denhollander faced the abuser and said, “Larry, I can call what you did evil and wicked … because the straight line exists.” Newspapers across the country, and magazines like People and Glamour, all positively profiled Denhollander—but they left out her consistency in showing what happens when we pretend that line does not exist, and then do what is right in our own eyes.

Eight years ago Denhollander wrote in the Journal of Creation, “A battle is raging over evolution today, but it is not confined to the scientific arena. Like ripples on a pond, the effect of an ideology in one area of life spreads to each area, and the consequences are never neatly contained. … The time has come where Christians must either acknowledge God’s lordship in every area … or very possibly suffer permanent defeat.”