Recently my English class and I finished reading the story of Beowulf, which was one of the first written to personify good and evil, and because of this the teacher asked the class to have a discussion about good and evil and how to tell the two apart. The class was then broken up into groups where we proceeded to discuss the topics. Soon I engaged in an interesting conversation with another student who struggles with his faith in God. I asked him how he decided what is good and what is evil, and his response was if something hurts people then it is evil; if something does not hurt people then it is good. When I asked him where he got his standard from, he could not give me and answer. This discussion eventually left my discussion group and the entire class started debating the issue and, whenever I asked someone where their standard for good and evil came from, no one could give a straight answer.
Eventually someone asked me where my standard for good and evil came from and I responded that it came from God, and that I believed that what is right and wrong is defined in the Bible and that morality was absolute. The class responded by saying that morality was relative, that I cannot tell anyone else what was right and what was wrong. They told me that morality changed based on the situation. I then asked, if morality is relative then how can you tell a murderer that what he has done is wrong? When they could not give a straight answer I
then said that if morality is relative then everything is permissible. That pretty much ended the discussion.
The reason I am sharing this story with you is so maybe I can help someone realize the value of standing up for their faith. No one in that class converted to Christianity right there and then, but the seeds were sown, and I hope I got them thinking about God and moral absolutes, which is what I was trying to do in the first place, get them to think.
I hope you enjoyed the story and I look forward to witting some more for you. God bless you.
-Dominic Girard has attended Camp Constitution’s annual summer camp and is a student at Manchester Public High School in Manchester, NH