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A bountiful, but bitter harvest of dishonor, immorality, profanity, drug/drink addiction, and cold secularism have become commonplace in our beautiful America. These behaviors extend from the powerless and poor through all intermediate levels to the wealthy and most powerful in business and government (especially among those in government, it seems). A growing acceptance of homosexuality continued merciless abortion, and the little-left-to- the-imagination advertising and entertainment industries that are before us at almost every turn are a part of this corrupt reaping.
But the harvest is never reaped without the seed sowing before it. To change the figure for a moment, the amorality of modern America is only the symptom (indeed, a dire one). The symptoms can never be permanently cured without finding and destroying their cause. The important thing to discover is the cause that has produced such a calamitous disease.
Some of the “grass roots” philosophies of the turbulent 1960s need to be revisited at this point. “If it feels good, do it” and “Do your own thing” are two of them. Rather than being the seed, I judge them to be a part of the harvest, also. The seed behind all of this is much older. It is so old and has been repeated so many times that its origin may have been utterly obscured. It started in reference to religion. Denominational scions and their devotees have trumpeted such slogans for generations to defend diversity in doctrine and practice among professed believers. This catchphrase has been (and still is) used to excuse every imaginable departure from and irreverence toward the teaching of the New Testament.
This attitude has been most frequently couched in the mantra, “It makes no difference what you believe as long as you’re sincere.” Its repeaters have surely not bothered to analyze what they are saying. If this motto were true in religious doctrine (and it most assuredly is not), then logically, it does not matter whether or not one believes. More to the point at hand, it is but a small step to apply this slogan to moral laws. This very rule gave birth to “situation ethics,” which advises that adultery and fornication are acceptable behavior as long as “true love” (as the perpetrator defines it, of course) is present. If it makes no difference what one believes, then, just as logically, it makes no difference the way one behaves.
By such a dictum our world has come to call good “evil,” and evil “good” (Isa. 5:20). Following this principle totally destroys the distinction between religious Truth and error and between right and wrong in morals. It deceives its adherents into believing that their sincere allegiance to a doctrinal error magically converts it into that which is true. It beguiles men into accepting wickedness and sin as innocent activity. The long-promoted “do-you-own- thing” credo relative to doctrine and morals has now morphed into its next manifestation, Postmodernism that denies the existence of static or absolute truth: truth is to each individual that which the individual understands or accepts as truth. Logically, Postmodernism therefore, to be consistent, must deny the possibility/existence of philosophical contradiction. It creates an otherworldly atmosphere that eschews reality. In other words, “Postmodernism” is another word for insanity.
Try as one might, however, “love,” “sincerity,” or “denial” (or any other factors) do not change the truth that 2 + 2 = 4, rather than another sum that some might wish or guess it to be. Neither do these factors purify immorality, make murder and theft honorable, or convert religious error into Truth. Jesus words will forever stand: “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free…. Thy word is truth” (John 8:32; 17:17).
[Note: I wrote this article for and it was published in The Lighthouse, weekly bulletin of Northpoint Church of Christ, Denton, TX, December 11, 2011, of which I was editor.]
Attribution: From thescripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
