|
|
|
It was like something out of a horror film. It was just another Thursday evening when Jeff Bush went to bed. He could not have known that the earth itself would swallow him up before midnight.
Bush lived in a small ranch house outside Tampa, Fla., with his brother and a few others. Around 11 p.m., Bush’s brother Jeremy heard a loud crash followed by screams. He ran to the bedroom, opened the door, and stood dumfounded: “My old lady turned the light on and all I seen was this big hole, a real big hole ... .”
Jeremy Bush later told reporters, “I couldn’t get him out. I tried so hard. I tried everything I could. I could swear I heard him calling out.”
Authorities pulled Jeremy out of the collapsing bedroom and away from the property, which they deemed too unstable to continue the search. Rescue efforts for Jeff were suspended and the house was subsequently razed. On Monday the Bush family held a brief but poignant memorial service at the site that had become his grave.
Sinkholes like the one that swallowed Jeff Bush usually develop over a long period of time. Under the top layer of sand and clay lies a limestone base, which is pitted with fissures carved out by the waters of the aquifer.
Because limestone is porous, the water can, over long periods of time, cause rifts and form underground caverns. As these caverns grow and connect with each other, a sinkhole can form. The surface of sand and clay becomes unstable and crumbles into the hole beneath. The sinkhole, having begun to open, can expand at catastrophic speeds.
There is a spiritual parallel to this story. People in the United States (and in the western hemisphere generally) have for more than a century been going about business as usual, but they have been doing so on a profoundly unstable moral base.
It began — or at least was hastened — by the nihilism of Frederick Nietzsche. That brilliant and unstable philosopher pronounced God dead and claimed that morality was an invention of the weak (especially Jews and Christians) to restrain the strong.
The impact of Nietzsche’fs ideas has been devastating. If God dies, all objective truths die with him, and only subjective opinion remains. Those truths once formed the bedrock of an almost universally accepted morality, but that bedrock has been eroding now for many decades. In a phrase St. Paul could easily have written about Nietzsche’fs philosophical descendants, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie ... .”
It was like something out of a horror film. It was just another Thursday evening when Jeff Bush went to bed. He could not have known that the earth itself would swallow him up before midnight.
Bush lived in a small ranch house outside Tampa, Fla., with his brother and a few others. Around 11 p.m., Bush’s brother Jeremy heard a loud crash followed by screams. He ran to the bedroom, opened the door, and stood dumfounded: “My old lady turned the light on and all I seen was this big hole, a real big hole ... .”
Jeremy Bush later told reporters, “I couldn’t get him out. I tried so hard. I tried everything I could. I could swear I heard him calling out.”
Authorities pulled Jeremy out of the collapsing bedroom and away from the property, which they deemed too unstable to continue the search. Rescue efforts for Jeff were suspended and the house was subsequently razed. On Monday the Bush family held a brief but poignant memorial service at the site that had become his grave.
Sinkholes like the one that swallowed Jeff Bush usually develop over a long period of time. Under the top layer of sand and clay lies a limestone base, which is pitted with fissures carved out by the waters of the aquifer.
Because limestone is porous, the water can, over long periods of time, cause rifts and form underground caverns. As these caverns grow and connect with each other, a sinkhole can form. The surface of sand and clay becomes unstable and crumbles into the hole beneath. The sinkhole, having begun to open, can expand at catastrophic speeds.
There is a spiritual parallel to this story. People in the United States (and in the western hemisphere generally) have for more than a century been going about business as usual, but they have been doing so on a profoundly unstable moral base.
It began — or at least was hastened — by the nihilism of Frederick Nietzsche. That brilliant and unstable philosopher pronounced God dead and claimed that morality was an invention of the weak (especially Jews and Christians) to restrain the strong.
The impact of Nietzsche’fs ideas has been devastating. If God dies, all objective truths die with him, and only subjective opinion remains. Those truths once formed the bedrock of an almost universally accepted morality, but that bedrock has been eroding now for many decades. In a phrase St. Paul could easily have written about Nietzsche’fs philosophical descendants, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie ... .”
The loss of belief in objective truth is evident in current academic practices. Scholars traditionally argued for the validity of their respective truth claims. Today that approach is being undercut by academic programs — African-American Studies, Women's Studies, Gay and Lesbian Studies, etc. — that are in some cases more interested in the way a particular group responds to ideas than they are in the ideas themselves.
The ground beneath us is now pocked by fissures of relativism. In regions where sinkholes occur, homeowners are urged to inspect their foundations for cracks, which may be a sign that the ground below has become unstable. Were we to inspect America’s foundation for the cracks that might indicate a moral sinkhole, would we find any?
We would find many. Over the past few decades, sexual morality has shifted off its foundation. Consumption has become a virtue. Respect for elders — a core moral principle across all cultures — has been shattered. Regard for life in the unborn and the elderly has diminished. All the signs suggest we are living on unstable ground. If we are not careful, we too may be swallowed up.
Shayne Looper is the pastor of Lockwood Community Church in Branch County, Mich.
