I’m involved with a ministry that trains and sends missionaries into Papau New Guinea, among other remote places. The ministry takes the Christian gospel to isolated people groups who have never even heard the name of Christ before, places where cannibalism remains a threat.
I’m regularly struck that a segment of modern America looks like the pagan tribesmen from Papau New Guinea. They have colorful tattoos, stretched earlobes, holes through their noses, crazy hair, and heaven only knows what else. By and large those things are gradually left behind once a society becomes educated and “Christianized.” We live in a post-Christian nation that is rapidly abandoning the cultural norms of civilized Western nations. We are devolving as a people in large measure because Christianity is under assault.
I have been thinking the same thing over the last year or so. It struck me that much of the body art/modification which is so prevalent resembled that of the pagan idolaters and I wondered if this is just a symptom of a society which is retreating from God. "And God gave them over....."