Ben Lewis made an interesting point.

“A culture that increasingly wants nothing to do with God also wants to decry, with great moral indignation, the sins of others.”

We see this in the constant hand-wringing over Pres. Trump’s tweets, the excoriation of men at the mere hint of sexual harassment, and the vicious condemnation of those perceived to be racist. It goes so far as to justify acts of violence against those who stray too far from the modern “holy writ” of political correctness.

Not to justify crass language, harassment or racism,  but when we divorce God from our worldview, how do we even conceptualize morality? Granted, we can create a subjective moral framework through reason alone. Hans Hermann Hoppe has done this with his argumentation ethics. Various natural rights frameworks also exist. As a Christian, I start with God’s word and then use the reasoning abilities He gave me to build a system of morality and ethics.

But our modern culture has even jettisoned any semblance of rationally-based ethical standards. Morality today seems to hang on nothing more than the way things make people feel. As a result, the masses have lost all sense of moral perspective. We see people freaking out about something the president said, but not blinking an eye when hundreds of thousands of people die in the president’s wars.

It’s easy to mock people as “snowflakes,” but emotion-based moral relativism has darker implications. It results in this kind of belief system:

“I think for most of human history slavery was moral.”

If you believe morality is simply what the majority of people happen to think at any given time, I suppose slavery was moral. In 1840, most Americans thought so, and it was the law of the land. Dissenters were deemed “radicals.”  But was slavery really moral in 1840? Really?

And the ramifications of this worldview seem to be lost on its adherents. If I can get enough people together that agree that slavery is moral again, that would make it so. These people assume that their moral assumptions are absolute and sacrosanct while denying the existence of any absolute moral principles.

Ultimately, society needs some type of subjective moral structure that doesn’t float with the whims of the mob in order to function. Lacking that, society begins to fray at the seams.

But there is an even deeper problem with societies modern moral framework that even perfectly legitimate rational ethical frameworks can’t deal with.

It offers no hope.

To quote Ben Lewis again:

“The world can offer only condemnation of sin. The redemption that comes through Christ is entirely absent. It’s like society only wants to perform the first part of a heart transplant, but still expects the patient to live.”

Indeed, we have plenty of finger-pointing, heaping-helpings of moral indignation, and angry mobs with their digital torches engaging in ritual scapegoating of “the other.”   We have all the judgment and condemnation we could ever need. I’ve even witnessed calls for sacrificial violence, such as the billboard in Louisville, Kentucky, proclaiming “Kill the NRA!”

But no forgiveness.

No mercy.

No redemption.

No grace.

The modern moral code is supported by violence, coercion and fear. We need something better.

Photo by Alejandro Pulido