Romans 1:18-21, 28-32. Paul is describing the fate of "men who by their wickedness suppress the truth." What can be known of God is plain to them, since God reveals Himself in all things that He has made, yet they refuse to honor God or give thanks to Him. Therefore, "since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct." They were filled with all matter of wickedness, including envy, murder, strife, deceit, gossip, and slander. They became haters of God, disobedient to parents, boastful, foolish, heartless, and ruthless. "Though they know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them."

I keep saying to myself and others that I can't wrap my head around how people who think they are good people are acting the way they are acting right now. How can they not see that abortion is murder, and abortion up to birth is a moral monstrosity? How can they not see that performing gender surgery on minors is horrific? It is mind-boggling to me! But a priest friend told me that when I can't wrap my head around something after really thinking it through morally, then that is the devil, or evil.

Evil corrupts thinking and makes it illogical and indefensible, and that is what Paul is describing here. When people deny their own senses, and what is written in their hearts, and suppress the truth, even from themselves, then their thinking becomes unmoored from truth and reality and devolves into a base mind and improper conduct.

That slope is slippery indeed. For example, once we accepted abortion up to three months, it has been a short leap to abortion up to and beyond birth. Since abortion at any stage is a denial of the truth, the initial smaller lie just became a bigger one, one that "logically" followed from the small one. That is how thinking becomes corrupted. We can look at all of the evil and wickedness being done right now, and trace it all back to a small lie that sounded like a reasonable compromise at the time, but was really just a denial of God and the truth.

The midterm elections are coming up this week. If they are fairly run and counted (a big if!), we will see how many of our fellow citizens are denying the truth and have become of base mind, and how many approve of those who practice evil.