Time magazine’s recent announcement of their “Person of the Year” reflects a serious trend in our culture and society. Time’s “Person of the Year” named a group of people rather than an individual. Time chose to honor “The Silence Breakers,” those who spoke out about sexual harassment in the workplace. Ever since the subject broke several weeks ago, it seems that every day, accusations fly against more people—politicians and entertainers, even religious leaders have been accused of impropriety.
#WhatDidYouExpect? Remember the sexual revolution of the 60’s and 70’s? Hugh Hefner first published Playboy Magazine in 1953 and opened the Playboy Club in 1960. About that time, Joseph Fletcher, an Episcopal priest, popularized the idea of situational ethics, approaching ethical issues from the standpoints of pragmatism, relativism, positivism, and personalism. Essentially no two situations are identical, so no set rules apply. All moral decisions were to be made on a sliding continuum.
The Twentieth Century was known for the rise of this continuum as the philosophy of moral relativism. This philosophy has been condensed into such beliefs that there are no absolutes (in itself an absolute statement), and there is no right or wrong. Everything is simply a matter of preference. You like chocolate. I like vanilla. “What’s right for you may not be right for others,” They say.
More recently, the idea of political correctness states that if you make any type of moral distinction, say between gay marriage and straight marriage, that is being judgmental (in itself being judgmental). For more than five decades, universities, movies, and television have been affirming that nothing can be considered right or wrong any more. Those who hold antiquated ideas such as the biblical idea of one man plus one woman are woefully on the wrong side of history. We need to be free from antiquated Victorian repressive sexual mores. (Have you ever wondered what “Victoria’s Secret” is?)
#EnterTheHypocrisy. The flip side of “what’s right for you may not be right for others” is “what’s wrong for you may not be wrong for others.” Now many are coming forward saying that certain behaviors are wrong! How can that be after saying for decades that there is no right or wrong, there are no absolutes? You can’t have it both ways. Either there is some objective measure of right and wrong, or there is not.
#YouCan’tHaveItBothWays. If you don’t like what you are harvesting, try planting different seeds. Society is simply reaping what it has sown. Young actresses play highly sexualized characters in movies and television, then become offended when producers, directors, and co-workers treat them as the characters they portray. You can’t have it both ways.
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction” (Galatians 6:7-8). When I was a youth, my pastor used the illustration of a father taking his sons fishing early one morning before sunrise. They went down to the river and out on the dock. The father placed the lantern on the dock while he and his sons got into the boat. As they began preparing their gear for fishing, they noticed that it was becoming increasingly dark and difficult to see inside the boat. The father looked up and noticed that the knot had come untied, and their boat had drifted slowly downstream. They had drifted away from the light of the lantern.
Decades ago, society purposefully loosed the moorings from the dock, and our society has been drifting ever since. Then we wonder why we are experiencing so much domestic violence, child abuse, substance abuse, mass shootings, high divorce rates, The Knockout Game,” and myriads of other societal maladies. We are drifting, and we can’t even say we are drifting, because to say we are drifting is judgmental. To say we need a standard is deemed politically incorrect, so our metaphorical hands are tied.
#IsItAnyWonder. We should not be surprised. My father often said that we spend our youth sowing our wild oats, then our final years praying for crop failure. We cannot mock God. We are reaping what we have sown. The current societal conditions do not surprise me at all. What surprises me is that the church has come to reject the revelation in God’s Word. “Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction” (Proverbs 29:18 NIV).
Mike McGuire Ministries 