One Nation

by Ben Carson M. D.

  Our government officials aren’t much better. According to Emily Post, for proper etiquette our high-ranking government officials are to be addressed “The Honorable.” However, with congressmen like Anthony Weiner with his sexting, former presidential candidate John Edwards’s campaign finance fraud and infidelity, and Governor Mark Sanford skipping out of the country away from his family on Father’s Day to be with a mistress, it is small wonder that our youth often have a difficult time finding their identities.

  If sports stars and entertainers and even government officials are not the optimal role models, who should we be holding up as examples for society? A role model is someone whose life is worthy of emulation. Those would be individuals who not only are successful but who also contribute to the well-being of society at large. There is nothing that says these people need to be famous and many of the best role models live right in our own houses.

  My Mother: One of the Best Role Models I’ve Seen

  My mother provided for my brother and me a wonderful example of how not to be a victim. Even though the odds sometimes seemed stacked against her, she would never give up. I remember when my brother started high school they placed him in the vocational track instead of the college prep track. My mother was more than a little upset and ruffled many feathers from the local school all the way to the Board of Education of Detroit to alter that situation. I remember another time when a hit-and-run driver hit her car and sped away. She backed up the car and chased him for thirty minutes through the streets of Southwest Detroit before he finally gave up. You certainly did not have to worry about whether she could defend herself physically if she caught him, even though she was only five foot three. The example of tenacity and courage that she presented certainly was not lost on me and is a large part of who I am today.

  Teachers as Role Models

  Even though my mother was a terrific role model, she did not have the wherewithal to be a good academic mentor. Fortunately, I had several teachers along the way who recognized some potential in a poor boy from the ghetto, and decided to invest much time and effort to make sure that I not only mastered my school work but also listened to quite a bit of advice they gave me about how to be successful in life. I was particularly grateful for all the tips I received about college life and how to overcome the challenges it would present. Teachers frequently get a bad rap, but good ones can mean the difference between success and failure in many lives. When they are driven by their inherent goodness rather than some of the teacher unions, their potential for doing good is almost unlimited.

  The Inventor as Role Model

  When it comes to making contributions to society, inventors can serve as spectacular role models. People like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Elijah McCoy, an inventor of locomotive lubrication systems, had profound effects on the way we all live. African American Garrett Morgan, widely known for his innovations with the traffic light, in 1916 demonstrated the effectiveness of his invention the “Morgan Safety Hood and Smoke Protector” (now known as the gas mask) by rescuing 32 men trapped 250 feet underground in a tunnel. Prior to that event, people had scoffed at his lifesaving innovation. This invention was then utilized by the U.S. Army, saving many lives during World War I, and is now commonly used all over the world by fire and police departments, as well as the military (http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventors/a/Garrett_Morgan.htm). Thomas Edison was a determined inventor who knew 999 ways a lightbulb did not work. His associate, Lewis Latimer, who came up with the filament that made the bulb last for more than a few days, happened to be born in Massachusetts of escaped slaves from Virginia. Although his parents had escaped six years before Lewis was born, he was still considered a slave and his freedom had to be defended by Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison in Boston, actually purchasing his freedom himself, with the help of a local minister. After serving in the navy during the Civil War (he enlisted at age sixteen), he was honorably discharged.

  Identifying Contemporary Role Models

  All the people mentioned above embody the “can-do” attitude that helped America rapidly gain power and position in the world. Unfortunately, in the current atmosphere of division and demonization of political opponents and with the ever-present influence of political correctness, it is very difficult to identify generally admired people. But it is fair to say that most people admire courage and the willingness to sacrifice in order to achieve a goal. This is why people like Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, and John F. Kennedy are widely admired. They all had their flaws, as is the case with every one of us, but they all faced gigantic obstacles and were victorious. People like Helen Keller, Neil Armstrong, and many war heroes also demonstrated a level of courage that most of us can only dream about. Courage is admired so much because it is lacking in so many. People of courage tend to be much less concerned about their status with other people than they are with their ability to consistently uphold principles and values. Such people frequently are not appreciated during their lifetimes, but the pages of history are frequently kind to them. It takes some degree of wisdom to be able to identify the courageous role models living and working before our very eyes.

  Action Steps

  Discuss heroes and role models with the young people in your life. Ask who their role models are and recommend role models discussed in this chapter.

  Discuss heroes and role models with the older people in your life and compare their answers with those of the young people. Are their role models similar or different?

  Thank one of your role models for his or her example.

  Examine your life. Could you be a role model for a younger person?

  THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY

  Those who follow the right path fear the Lord; those who take the wrong path despise Him.

  PROVERBS 14:2

  When I was in my early teens, my brother and I acquired a BB gun. We were excited and began shooting it behind the house, using cans as targets. We were having so much fun that we didn’t think about where the errant BBs were going. The man who lived across the alley came to our home holding a screen with multiple holes in it. It looked amazingly like holes that would be made by a BB gun. We didn’t have money to replace the screen, but agreed to do some chores for our neighbor. Needless to say we stopped shooting the gun in the neighborhood.

  However, our aunt Jean and uncle William lived out in the country where there was plenty of space to shoot a BB gun and we could hardly wait to get there. One Sunday morning while we were spending the weekend with our relatives in the country, I spotted a red-winged blackbird that seemed to be an excellent target for an eagle-eyed BB gun marksman. I took careful aim at the beautiful creature sitting peacefully high above the fray in a tree. I really did not expect to hit the bird, but only seconds after I squeezed the trigger, the delicate form of the innocent creature fell lifelessly to the ground. I went over to the body and gazed at it with a combination of horror and pride. I was disgusted with myself for killing an innocent animal and I vowed never to shoot another bird and I never have.

  Was I wrong to kill that bird and did it really even matter in the whole scheme of things? No one would really miss that bird except maybe the little chicks if this happened to be their mother out looking for food. Yet I couldn’t find any way to assuage my guilt. The fact that I felt guilt obviously meant that I thought I had done something wrong—but how would I have known that? No one had ever explicitly told me not to shoot a bird, yet I had an innate sense that there was an absolute standard of morality that I had violated.

  Who Says?

  What is right? What is wrong? And who gets to determine the answers to these questions? For a nation to be truly united, most of its citizens must agree on the answers to these questions—or at least agree that there are answers to be found. For years, most Americans have turned to a belief in God and the Bible for answers. From the Creation story to the Ten Commandments to the Gospels to the Epistles, the Bible provided an explanation for th
e meaning of life and instructed us in moral principles. We held to a Judeo-Christian standard while respecting the beliefs of those who didn’t share them, and that standard saved us from confusion. Today, fewer people believe in the Bible, or even in absolute truth, and our rejection of an objective moral standard has thrown our society into disarray. If in fact we do really believe in God and His word, many of the moral “gray” issues of today become black and white.

  Abortion

  According to God’s word, life begins at conception rather than at the time of delivery or at some arbitrary point during gestation. Psalm 139:13-16 indicates that God knew the writer of these verses while he was yet unformed. In Jeremiah 1:4-5, there is an indication that God knew Jeremiah before he was born and had a special purpose for his life. This is one of several biblical passages that indicate a continuum of life that starts before birth and continues after death. In the Book of Exodus, chapter 21, verses 22–24, it is made quite clear that God considers the life of the unborn to be just as valuable as the life of an adult. When you couple this belief with the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13), it is clear that abortion is rarely a moral option. Add the commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39), and it becomes clear that we ought to help care for mothers put in a tough place by unwanted pregnancies.

  Recently I visited a place called the Hope Center in Greenville, Tennessee, where young women with unplanned pregnancies are nurtured, mentored, and encouraged to give birth whether or not they plan to keep the baby. They make provisions for adoption if the young woman chooses not to keep the child and provide resources and support if she wants to keep the baby. They also facilitate continued education and job training for these young mothers. The center is run by a Christian organization and they are doing exactly what they should be doing. We all need to be proactive in terms of providing solutions for those in our society who have made mistakes, rather than just criticizing them. This is what it means to be truly moral people.

  Homosexuality

  Another sticky moral issue is the topic of homosexuality. Many people do not understand why Christians object so strongly to gay marriage, but the answers are simply laid out in Scripture. First, several Bible verses reveal God’s disapproval of homosexual behavior. For example, Leviticus 20:13 states, “If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense.” Jude 7, in the New Testament, says, “And don’t forget the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns, which were filled with sexual immorality and every kind of sexual perversion. Those cities were destroyed by fire and are a warning of the eternal fire of God’s judgment.” Second, in Ephesians 5:31-32, Paul wrote, “As the Scriptures say, ‘A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one.’ This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.” When you see that the Bible compares God’s relationship with the church to the relationship between a man and a woman in covenant marriage, it is easy to see why those who believe that marriage is an institution established by God might be less than enthusiastic about changing the definition of that institution. Some Christians may interpret the Scripture differently, but the text remains fairly clear: Condoning homosexual behavior goes directly against God’s commands. Changing the definition of marriage distorts God’s illustration of His relationship with us.

  This is not to say that God does not love homosexuals, because He most certainly does, just as He loves everyone regardless of their behavior. And Jesus died to pay the price for the shortcomings of everyone. Since there are no perfect people, no one but God has the right to judge our lives outside of criminal activity. Only He knows the minute details of every life from conception to death and can judge matters of the heart.

  However, this does not mean that we have to accept man-imposed changes to God’s word. We all make choices in life. In this matter, one can choose God’s word or the gay marriage agenda. Even though the two are not compatible, people on opposite sides of the issue do not need to be hateful toward the other side. It also should be made quite clear that upholding traditional marriage does not mean that one is a homophobe. It appears almost impossible for the gay community to understand this last point. Whether they understand it or not, it is the job of the Christian community to love everyone as God loves us.

  Evolution

  Standing somewhat opposed to traditional morality is another form of religion, although its believers would never admit it. This religious belief is the theory of evolution. In this belief system, only the strong survive and there are no moral implications associated with the actions necessary to survive and thrive. As I have stated and written publicly, it might be more difficult for evolutionists to describe the basis of morality than it would be for a creationist.

  This is not to say that those who believe in evolution have no morals, but I was attacked by some biology professors at Emory University in Atlanta for allegedly saying that evolutionists were unethical. I suspected that their real objective was to drum up support for their opposition to my being invited as the commencement speaker at Emory, since I was a creationist and they didn’t think that such people had the right to be honored at an institution of higher learning. They started a petition and received many signatures, but a counterpetition received more than four times as many signatures.

  I did speak at the commencement and was received very warmly, probably to the chagrin of the intolerant instigators, one of whom subsequently sent me a note of apology stating that they had misinterpreted what I said. Obviously I was not attacking the character of evolutionists, but as is so often the case, many people who disagree with your beliefs find it more convenient to distort them than to refute them, so they can proclaim you to be an idiot.

  It is amusing to me that many in the “intellectual community” suggest that those with deeply held religious beliefs are antiscience. Many times I have heard it said of me that my opinions should not be held in high regard, because I believe that God created the earth six thousand years ago. How can anyone, they argue, with such beliefs understand anything about science and medicine, which is based on science.

  I can unequivocally state that I love science and understand and accept its basic laws. I do not know whether the earth is six thousand years old or not, and I’m not sure that such knowledge is important. The Bible says “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” It then goes on to describe the creation week without in any way indicating what the period of time was that elapsed between the first verse of the Bible and the start of creation week. It could have been billions of years, or it could have been less than one day. That means the earth could be billions of years old, or it could have been created in an already mature state by God six thousand years ago.

  To say that anyone believing this is stupid and nonscientific is pure demagoguery and bigotry, and certainly is uncharacteristic of a true scientist. The fact that I and millions of others believe that God created the earth and everything on it in an orderly fashion is no more antiscience than believing that something came from nothing, exploded and formed a perfectly organized solar system and universe, particularly in light of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that things tend to move toward a state of disorder. Both beliefs require faith in things that have not been proven and neither has the right to proclaim the other as foolish.

  As a doctor, I have to say that it also requires a great deal of faith to believe that an organ system as complex as the kidney or the eye formed through the process of natural selection, which states that things that are not useful to an organ simply disappear, whereas things that are useful are genetically passed on to the next generation. There are many components to organs like the kidney or the eye that are useless without all the other components and, therefore, according to the theory of evolution, sh
ould not be passed on to the next generation. In fact, according to the theory of evolution, without invoking all kinds of convolutions to the theory, it is impossible for any complex organ system to exist unless it just spontaneously formed overnight. That sounds crazy to me, but then again, if you believe that matter can form from nonmatter, I guess you can believe an eyeball can form overnight.

  My understanding of science has not precluded my pursuit of a career as a successful neurosurgeon. The claims of some in the scientific community that belief in the theory of evolution is the foundation of all science is pure and unadulterated fantasy. Belief in evolution is just as much associated with religion as belief in creation. They both require faith, either in God or in man.

  Unlike godly principles that are uniting in nature, many who believe in the evolutionary approach drive wedges between people by insisting that all intelligent people believe as they do and that anyone with a different belief leaves something to be desired intellectually.

  An interesting question that frequently arises during these kinds of discussions is whether or not animals are capable of distinguishing right from wrong. Is it wrong for a lion to kill an innocent lamb or even to kill a human being when it is hungry or even when it is just being a vicious killer? If evolutionary theory is true, nothing should separate humans from animals.