UNFORMED
CONSCIENCES

Topics: Conscience; Crime; Parenting; Prisons; Youth

References: Romans 2:12–16; 3:9–26; 1 Timothy 4:1–3; Titus 1:15

More than ever before in American history—indeed in Western history—we are witnessing the near-death of conscience.

An incident in Indiana a few years ago brought this home to me. I had visited the prison several times before, but that day a young inmate responded to my proffered handshake by smacking my hand away. In many years of visiting prisons, I had never before encountered such direct and immediate hostility from a complete stranger. For obvious reasons, prisoners are rarely cheerful, but I saw in those eyes that day a chilling hardness I had never encountered before. Since then, however, I have seen a similar hardness reflected in the eyes of countless other inmates, particularly younger ones.

I asked the assistant warden, a Christian, what was happening. “This place has greatly changed,” he said. “Ten years ago I could talk to these kids about right and wrong. Now they don’t even know what I’m talking about.” He said older prisoners were demanding protection from the newly arrived nineteen- or twenty-year-olds, an ominous reversal. Historically, younger guys needed protection from the older cons.

The horrifying truth is that we have bred a generation with unformed consciences.

—Charles Colson, Wheaton College Magazine (Summer 2000)