June 2012 – On June 28, 1914, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, a Yugoslav nationalist, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife.

Princip was angry and bitter at what he believed was the mistreatment of his people. He was also insecure about his small physical frame, and after he was rejected from military service as a result, Princip had something to prove. When he fired his pistol into the archduke's car, many historians believe he ignited World War I.

In that war another young man was made bitter, a young German soldier named Adolf Hitler. He saw Germanys defeat in the war and subjugation under the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles as the work of sinister forces like the Jews.

The terrible economic struggles that followed the end of the war made many of the German people ripe for the enchantments of a demagogue - someone like Hitler. A second world war erupted, and then the Cold War between a free West and the communist empire of the Soviet Union. Millions died, and hundreds of millions more suffered.

All this unfolded because of one young man. Of course, the events of the 20th century may have unfolded anyway. But historically speaking, Gavrilo Princip did start it all. In 1999, Time magazine's Richard Stengel declared Princip - albeit rather tongue in cheek - the "trigger of the century."

He was an individual "who performed one small act that set in motion a great, grand tumult of actions that changed history," Stengel said.

Sin is often just like that. It starts small in the heart of a person and grows to consume his or her life. Then actions tumble out of that poisoned heart, and then the fallout begins to destroy others.

The Scripture says that the wages of sin is death. That certainly applies to individuals. Does it apply to families, communities and cultures? Is sin really just an individual matter?

Pornography
The explosion in the use of pornography is a perfect example of the intersection between individual sin - in this case, lust - and the subsequent impact on the lives of others.

While there are other channels of porn consumption - such as DVDs and magazines - it is the internet that has fueled America's growing love affair with pornography.

According to Dr. Jill C. Manning, a licensed marriage and family therapist whose specialties include internet porn consumption and addictions to pornography, research shows that "more than half of Americans (172 million) use the internet and 20 to 33% of users go online for sexual purposes." That's roughly between 34 and 57 million people.

Many label porn a victimless crime. Really?

In testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in 2005, Manning addressed the subject of pornography and its power to destroy lives. Manning said research revealed that online sexual activity was "a hidden public health hazard" that was "exploding."

Manning told the subcommittee she was very concerned about the power of online pornography to destroy marriages. This is especially true because the largest demographic of people struggling with these behaviors is married men. Almost 50% of those who consume online pornography are married men, she said.

Manning said, "The marital relationship is a logical point of impact to examine because it is the foundational family unit. Moreover, research indicates the majority of internet users are married and the majority seeking help for problematic sexual behavior online are married, heterosexual males."

Research indicates that the use of pornography is associated with dangerous marital trends, including an increased risk of separation and divorce, a decrease in the sense of marital intimacy and sexual satisfaction, and an increased risk that one spouse will be unfaithful."

These trends reflect a cluster of symptoms that undermine the foundation upon which successful marriages and families are established," Manning said.

Substance abuse
The issue of substance abuse is another example of how individual behavior reverberates in the culture at large.

According to a study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, nearly 36% of convicted offenders had been drinking alcohol when they committed their offense.

"We know that nearly 4 in 10 violent victimizations involve use of alcohol," said the BJS.

In terms of drug-related crime, a 2004 BJS study found that 26% of state drug offenders (25% of federal) had committed crimes in order to get money to support their drug habits.

The social disruption due to substance abuse is clear. Last year the Tulsa World and The Oklahoman chose a single day at random and then reviewed the records of all felonies filed in Tulsa and Oklahoma counties. The newspapers' reviews found that more than 60% of those felony cases were related to drug or alcohol abuse, according to Your Life on Course, a mental health and substance abuse news source in Oklahoma.

However, Doug Drummond, Tulsa first assistant district attorney, said that, in his experience, the percentage is much higher.

"I would estimate 80 to 90% of our cases, including homicides and robberies, involve some link to illegal drugs or alcohol," Drummond told the newspapers. "Most of the murders and robberies in Tulsa County have some kind of nexus to drug use or trying to obtain or sell illegal drugs. They may be taking drugs or alcohol when the crime is committed. Victims are robbed and burglarized because someone is trying to support his or her drug habit."

Crime
Few people fail to understand that the commission of a crime involves the breaking of man's laws, but how many understand that most crimes are also a violation of God's laws? This is one of the clearest examples of how sin carries a heavy social cost.

In 1999 the Minnesota House of Representatives attempted to get a handle on the costs associated with crime in the U.S., examining multiple and previously existing studies on the subject from the 1990s.

These studies focused on the direct personal and property costs of crimes like arson, robbery, aggravated assault and motor vehicle theft; the costs associated with law enforcement and private security measures; and the secondary effects such as lost employment time and counseling costs due to the psychological aftermath of being victimized.

The survey found that the cost soared into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

More recent studies also demonstrate that the monetary costs of crime are staggering. According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, government statistics from 2009-10 showed that the cost of crime in just three areas robberies reported to the police ($456 million), arson ($585 million), and internet fraud ($560 million) exceeded $1.6 trillion.

Abortion
Sometimes the costs are not so easily perceived. The societal price tag for abortion, for example, goes beyond the murder of innocent children or the personal destruction of the mothers and fathers of those aborted lives. Some have noted that the ongoing slaughter of millions has robbed us as a culture of even more.

Former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum stirred controversy when he noted that, since abortion was legalized in 1973 by the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision, the estimated 53 million abortions performed have destroyed many of the very people who would have become consumers, productive workers and taxpayers.

"A third of all the young people [conceived] in America are not in America today because of abortion," Santorum said while campaigning last fall. "We are depopulating this country, and we're seeing the birth rate is below replacement rate for the first time in history."

This is not to say the pro-life movement only sees these unborn victims as potential cogs in the capitalist machine. Most pro-lifers have defended unborn children on the basis of the sanctity of life. But there is a social cost as well, according to Randall K. O'Bannon, director of research and education for National Right to Life.

In allowing millions of legal abortions, "we have also brought serious social and economic consequences on ourselves, not only depriving ourselves of the energy, the industry, and the ideas of those we have aborted, but also eliminating a significant portion of the tax base that funds government programs like Social Security and Medicare," O'Bannon told the Los Angeles Times. "You can't lose 53 million lives and not expect it to have a serious economic impact."

Fatherlessness
Even when children survive the womb and are born, sin casts its shadow over individuals and society alike.

One of the most serious and fundamental problems in our culture is "failing fathers," defined by Dartmouth professor Gregory Slayton as fathers who are "absent or essentially absent from the home."

Slayton, author of the new book Be a Better Dad Today: Ten Tools Every Father Needs, said almost 40% of Americas children are put at severe risk by father failure. (See "Absent dads" below.)

This tragic absence of the father from the home, Slayton said, is devastating our nation, "dramatically increasing the probability that [children] will suffer from sexual abuse, severe mental illness, incarceration, illiteracy, suicide, homicide, the inability to hold down a long term job and early mortality and will repeat the cycle of parental failure themselves toward their own children."

These symptoms not only devastate the people who suffer individually, but the social costs for treating those symptoms are staggering.

Slayton, a member of the faculty at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, puts the price tag for fatherhood failure in the U.S. at more than a trillion dollars over the last decade alone. "Yet these problems are growing significantly in size, scope and cost every year," he said. "We are spending billions treating the symptoms, but virtually ignoring the cause."

Grace and healing
Sin, then, isn't simply a personal issue. While it is a matter between the individual and God, it is not always only a private matter. It has consequences that ripple out beyond a person's life and affect family and friends, communities and nations.

In response, Christians must continue to do two things: (1) preach the gospel to individuals, that they might come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ; and (2) encourage their fellow citizens to consider God's word when ordering their lives and their culture, that God's grace and healing might flow from heaven.

This is the proper context for the culture war. Standing up for Judeo-Christian principles is not grabbing for power, but tossing a life preserver. Ignoring God and God's laws makes a nation hopelessly sick and feeble. Like any diseased body left untreated, weakness leads ultimately to death.

The Christian is commanded to love his neighbor as himself (Matthew 22:39). As a result, he promotes biblical values because they are more than simply God's suggestions, they are His prescription for life.That goes for cultures as well as individuals.  

Economic impact of abortion
According to National Right to Life, as of 2008, if abortion had not been legalized in 1973:

• 17,250,839 more people would be employed;
• $398,900,760,733 earned by those employees;
• $11,105,397,179 contributed to Medicare;
• $47,485,146,558 contributed to Social Security;
• 3,432,000 more retired workers could receive average monthly Social Security benefit; and
• 2,165,707 more people could receive Medicare Hospital Insurance.

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Absent dads
The tragic results of absent fathers are seen in society as well as the lives of individual children. According to statistics gathered by Dartmouth professor Gregory Slayton, here are some of the social pathologies associated with fatherlessness:

• Boys reared without their fathers are 70% more likely to end up in prison.
• When fathers leave home before their daughters are six years old, 35% of those daughters will become pregnant during their teen years, compared to just 5% of girls whose fathers stayed with the family.
• Children raised by failing fathers (absent or essentially absent from the home) are at least twice as likely to become drug addicts, drop out of school and/or commit teen suicide.