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| For followers of one religion or another, their understanding of morality is moulded by that religion, and so long as behaviour can be countenanced by the principles of their religion, it matters not what other people think. For example, some devotees of the Hindu god Shiva form groups which practise banditry and prostitution. This is because they believe Shiva's character to be both terrifying as well as gracious, for he is said to represent nature and human nature as both destructive and creative.
An Islamic terrorist sees nothing immoral about blowing up innocent people along with himself he even sees it as virtuous to destroy infidels, guaranteeing himself a place in paradise in the process. This again is based on his religion, and his understanding of the teaching of the Koran.
For Christians, too, morality and religion cannot be separated. In Britain we have a clear example of this in that so many of our laws were once based on the Ten Commandments. This was because Christianity once had much more influence than it does now, and that influence reached into the whole of our national life.
In countries that are largely Hindu, Islamic, Jewish and even Roman Catholic, it is still the case that morality is guided by tenets of those religions. In Britain, however, things. are now different. We have rejected the former influence of Christianity, and replaced it with secularism. We have no religion to guide our moraliry, so that for all practical purposes, from a Christian point of view, we have become an immoral nation.
"Wait a minute!" someone may say. "The great majority still believe that murder, rape and stealing are wrong. We're not so bad!"
This is all very well as far as it goes. But its weakness lies in that phrase "the great majority" because those words tell us that it is a morality that is arrived at by consensus. That is to say, our morality is determined by what most people think is right and wrong. But what happens when the opinion of the majority changes? It leads to a changing morality. We have seen this happen, for example, in the
changing attitude to marriage and divorce. Not so long ago, divorce was rare and when it happened it was not talked about, being regarded as a cause of shame.
Today, a huge number of marriages end in divorce, and we accept it as not unusual, and though a cause of disappointment and sadness, yet not a cause of shame.
As a nation we are all at sea morally, because we have rejected the solid biblical foundations that once were so influential, and replaced them with nothing better than the shifting sands of human opinion.
I am not suggesting that we should enforce biblical morality on the nation by means of legislation. That is unbiblical and ineffective. It is people's hearts that need to be changed in such numbers that we are brought back from the brink of disaster as happened as a result of the eighteenth century Methodist awakening.
But to return to the suggestion that we have become an immoral nation. Granted that we still hold murder etc to be immoral, but what if we were to take biblical morality more seriously? What effect would it have? It would not be a matter of murder, rape and theft alone. The worship of gods other than the true and living God would be seen as immoral. Videos, pictures and statues of Jesus would be seen as immoral because they transgress the second commandment. Blasphemy, taking the name of God and of Jesus on our lips without love or respect for the One to whom we are referring, would be seen as immoral. Sunday sport, entertainment and trade would be seen as immoral. Disobedience to parents would likewise be judged.
Calling for a return to biblical morality is right and proper, so long as it does not involve us in trying to force Christian standards on an unwilling people instead of drawing such standards from a people made willing in the day of God's power; but we need to remember that biblical morality is much more far-reaching than what some people might call inter-personal ethics.
Peter Kinley |
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