In a Valentine’s Day e-mail letter, Touchstone Magazine editor James Kushiner comments on the news from Belgium. After the general greeting for the day, here is the rest of the letter:

…we live in time when the love of many has grown cold. How else to explain what has happened in the West? Most have heard that Belgium has passed a law [updated link 2023] allowing the ‘euthanization’ of children. With their kind permission, of course. We wish we did not have live in such times. But we do.

Many have seen such things coming, for decades. But warnings, debates, arguments have been to no avail. Books will continue to be written on why it has come to this and how to argue against the slide down the slippery slope (is there any doubt that this slide has been going on?).

Maybe it’s time to recognize that one cannot argue rationally with a demonic spirit. In the United States, some 55,000,000 children in utero have been murdered under the inspiration of this spirit–over the past 41 years, a biblical generation of death in the wilderness. There is no Promised Land waiting for this unrepentant generation. We’ve been killing children without their permission already. Now, Belgium wants to kill adolescents if they are persuaded it would be better for them to go to sleep and never wake up.

I write to name this as the spirit of iniquity that it is. I am reminded of a scene in one of the greatest American films, “The Night of the Hunter.” Two young children, John and Pearl, are running for their lives from a deranged and murderous false preacher, Harry Powell (played by Robert Mitchum). Escaping down the Ohio River, the exhausted children spend part of a night in a barn, but they are awakened by the approaching sounds of Powell on horseback. John says to his sister, “Don’t he ever sleep?”

Exactly. The devil stalking in our midst is a ravenous adversary, always looking for someone to devour. He does not sleep. And his staunch ally, Molech, has devoured little children since biblical times.

The Lord Jesus Christ, to whom all authority in heaven and on earth belongs, has said, “Woe to them who cause these little ones to stumble. It would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened to his neck and be cast into the depths of the sea.” Woe to the nation that does these things. One does not have to be a prophet to see this. God will not be mocked.

In the film, a courageous witness to the Lord delivers the children from death. She is a magnificent heroine, played by Lillian Gish. She loves truly, without fear, with courageous compassion. We must continue to shine the light, like the magnificent witness Valentine.