Articles
Fashionable Morality
Moral awareness in our society is like a pinball machine. We ricochet from one issue to another, headlines trumpeting the latest scandal and editorials screaming moral outrage. Pretty interesting stuff for a society that doesn’t believe in judging anyone.
The latest cause celebre (“a legal case or an event that a lot of people become interested in,” Merriam-Webster online) is the domestic violence issue in the NFL. Ray Rice, former running back for the Ravens, has been in the crosshairs for decking his former fiancée (now wife) in a hotel elevator. Adrian Peterson, suspended running back for the Vikings, is facing charges of child abuse after injuring one of his children (he has six, by six different women).
Let us be clear: absolutely nothing justifies abusing (verbally or physically) or injuring another human being. This article is not addressing that issue. Rather, I am intrigued by what causes humans to cultivate, tolerate and even encourage certain behavior only to then turn on those who have practiced it. We seem to suffer from collective schizophrenia. We make our monsters and then become terrified by them. Some observations:
1) God’s moral standards are fixed and unwavering. Several passages in the NT list prohibited attitudes and behaviors unqualified by reams of “ifs, ands and buts” (cf. Rom 1:21-32; 1 Cor 6:9-11; Gal 5:19-21; Eph 4:25-5:5). Conversely, man’s self-created standards are often arbitrary and conditional. Certain behavior is encouraged until it manifests an unanticipated dark side. For example, the entertainment industry produces music that glorifies treating women like a piece of trash and markets it to young people who repeatedly digest the message via their ipods. Then everyone is mortified when these kids grow up to assault their girlfriends or wives. Where was the moral outrage against the music in the first place? Oh, yes, it was squelched by “freedom of speech” or disguised behind the bling of the recording stars. As a society we don’t like absolutes – until we are confronted with the fact that evil thrives in a moral vacuum.
2) Our moral awareness is heightened by media exposure. Our collective consciousness can ignore wickedness – for a while. But then something particularly heinous rears its head and we cannot avoid it any longer. It was interesting that a number of people in high positions – NFL executives, team owners, sports media – admitted downplaying Ray Rice’s behavior until they saw the video of him actually punching Janay Palmer. Ravens’ coach John Harbaugh said: “It was something we saw for the first time today, all of us. It changed things, of course. It made things a little bit different” (CNN online, 9/16/14).
Video had already been shown of Rice dragging his unconscious girlfriend out of the elevator, and that didn’t spark an appropriate response? It took video of the actual punch to stir righteous indignation?! What an indictment of the moral insensitivity of our culture! When we reject moral absolutes, we lose the ability to make principled judgments on the merits of the case. Things like “feelings” and visuals (or lack thereof) obscure the essence of the behavior.
3) Fits of moral outrage are cathartic. Society knows certain things are wrong, but in the prevailing libertine climate good people are stonewalled, shouted down and/or vilified when they speak out. Satan so crafts his evil work that moral objections fall on the deaf ears of the unprincipled. But in order to comfort ourselves over our chronic ambivalence toward evil, the media seize upon some egregious case and wail the tar out of it. Celebrities, politicians and other parasites “become involved in order to use the media attention surrounding the case to promote their own agendas” (Wikipedia on “cause celebre”). This outrage seems to reassure us that we are not as bad as we fear ourselves to be. What it really is is a circus that amuses for a while and then strikes the tents and heads to the next town.
During Judah’s decline there was a similar moral inconsistency. There episodes that were encouraging, such as Josiah’s reforms (reign 641-609 BC). Jeremiah even records what sounds like genuine repentance: “We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness and the iniquity … we have sinned against You. Do not abhor us for Your name’s sake …” (Jer 14:20-21). But God answers: “Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be favorable toward this people … ‘You have forsaken Me,’ says the Lord, ‘You have gone backward. Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you; I am weary of relenting!’” (Jer 15:1, 6). There was an entrenched evil in Judah that could not be eradicated by sporadic spasms of moral indignation. Our sense of what is right must run deeper than this month’s favorite flavor.
