“Perfectly Normal?”

One of the biggest news stories over the weekend was the announcement that Governor Sarah Palin’s seventeen-year-old, unmarried daughter is five months pregnant.  As you know, Governor Sarah Palin was recently named as the Vice Presidential running mate for Senator John McCain.

Now, before I go any further, I want to make it clear that this article is not about Gov. Palin’s qualifications as a governor or even the Vice President of the United States.  Nor is this article a critique of Senator’s McCain’s choice for Vice President. Rather, I reference this story for one reason, and one reason only: to address a comment made by one of the political commentators as it related to morality, not politics.

As I was watching a panel of political pundits discussing the pregnancy of Governor Palin’s seventeen-year-old, unmarried daughter, I could see that this young girl was going to become a “pawn” in the political process. On the one side, you had several commentators saying that this proved that Governor Palin was unfit to be Vice President, while on the other side, you had several commentators saying that the personal life of one’s children shouldn’t be considered as a factor in the election. Whether it should or shouldn’t is not my point. My point is that I was taken back by one of the commentators who said that this shouldn’t even be a news story because, after all “teenage pregnancy is perfectly normal.”

Well friends, I beg to differ!  The fact that something may be “common” doesn’t mean that it is “normal.”  No doubt, we do live in times when teenage pregnancy has become more common and has even been mainstreamed by our society.  A case in point is last year’s Glasgow High School Yearbook. It contained a two full-page spread devoted to five or six teenage students who were pregnant. But the fact that something is “common” doesn’t make it “normal.”

Normalcy is determined by a standard of conduct, and that standard of conduct is the Word of God. And of course, the Bible teaches that fornication is not “normal” behavior. Rather it is a deviation from the norm of sexual purity (Hebrews 13:4).

While fornication may be a common problem in our society, and those tempted and deceived by its lure need our understanding, compassion, and support, what they don’t need is for us to minimize their sin or condone their action by saying that what they did is “normal.” Common? More and more so every day. Normal? Absolutely not.

Friends, don’t allow the standards of the world to desensitize you. Don’t allow “common” practices to deceive you into thinking that the “abnormal” is “normal.” Remember, normalcy is determined by the standard of God’s word, not by the common practices of any given society.