Last week I wrote that our nation is in need of a spiritual renewal.

The evidence keeps mounting.

Just this week five people were killed in southern Indiana and Illinois by suspects who the police say apparently had no motive.

The killings were "random acts of violence."

Now there's a scary term for the '90s.

Violence for no apparent reason. Violence for violence's sake.

The big question is why. Why would anyone want to kill someone just to watch them die?

Murder is always heinous. But at least it's a little less baffling in the case of the drug turf war, the jealous husband or the gang banger.

But teens preying on hapless innocents just to see what it's like?

It defies explanation.

The fact that we, as a society, are generating these homicidal miscreants is very unsettling to me.

And don't tell me it can't happen here. I'm sure the people in Odon, Ind., and Albion, Ill., didn't think it could happen there either.

Here's part of the Associated Press account of this week's mayhem.

The shootings stunned the rural Indiana community where the victims had lived.

'This is a small town - it's supposed to be safe,' said Dana Harding, working at a store in Montgomery. Kristy Thompson, Ms. Cook's cousin, said her relative 'had just gone outside' when the two men 'just pulled up and shot her and took her car.'

I can't even begin to speculate what could cause someone to be so completely devoid of respect for human life.

People like that are off the scale of immorality.

But there are lots of other folks today who are perfectly willing to check their values at the door for a cause.

I like to listen to supporters of Bill Clinton talk and write about the dismissal of the Paula Jones case.

I also like to listen to them talk or write about what a bad man Kenneth Starr is for investigating the president.

Their basic message - and I realize I am generalizing here - is that all manner of illicit behavior is OK, as long as you're slick enough not to get caught.

The lies, the stonewalling, the obstruction of justice doesn't matter. The only thing that's important is that you get away with it.

One of my liberal friends even went as far as to smugly say to me, "I haven't seen any indictments yet, have you?"

Now there's something the president and his supporters can be proud of. He hasn't been indicted yet.

And all the while the approval rating remains high.

I think I know why.

It's the same reason people watch soap operas or listen to country music.

There is no question that people are comforted by the misery of others.

And they use the failings of others to rationalize their own shortcomings.

Psychologists say that if you watch a soap opera or listen to a sad country song your problems seem a little easier to take.

And your moral failings seem a little less significant.

I think that's what's going on with the president.

When people look at Bill and all his escapades it makes them feel good about their lives.

I mean, after all, if the president can fool around like that, why can't the store clerk or the mailman or the bank teller?

Frankly, I think the more hot water the president gets into, the more popular he'll get.

He makes a good number of people feel better about themselves, whether they know it or not.

After all, he's only human.

This brings us around to that need for spiritual renewal.

The problem is that morality shouldn't be quite that relative. When it comes to morality, there needs to be some right and wrong. There need to be some absolutes.

You can split legal hairs forever about whether or not harassment occurred in that hotel room.

But this avoids the question of whether we want a guy who pulls down his pants and says, "Kiss it," to be a leader in the free world.

Everybody knows right from wrong. There are very few gray areas.

But political correctness is pushing us away from that mentality.

People are afraid to take a stand. They don't want to be ridiculed for their beliefs.

So we end up with things like situation ethics. It teaches that what's wrong for one person may be right for another.

A friend of mine gave me an article (in reference to the Clinton affairs) that argued marital infidelity could actually be a good thing in some cases.

What is slowly eroding in our society is the sense that there is something more important than living in the now.

We live for the moment. It's the hedonistic "eat, drink and be merry" philosophy that we espouse.

Problem is, the eat, drink and be merry lifestyle is expensive. It requires us to work more. But that cuts down on our chance to eat, drink and be merry.

Soon we are feeling frustrated, anxious and angry. We feel powerless to control our own destiny.

Some of us flip off the driver next to us or berate the store clerk. Others go off the deep end and start shooting.

No one committing an act of incivility is spiritually secure. If they were confident and comfortable with themselves, they wouldn't act like that.

So how does a country undergo a spiritual renewal, anyway?

I think it will have to come from within. From within each one of us.

No one's rights need be trampled. But somehow, people must begin to realize the value of spiritual well-being. The value of absolutes. The value of right and wrong.

If enough people come to that realization, maybe it will catch on. [[In-content Ad]]