The New Moral Majority

You have probably heard the statement before, “I thought you were a Christian.” This insult was hurled at you after you had blundered big time.  Perhaps it was because you didn’t set a guard over your mouth, or you were somewhere you shouldn’t have been, or you did something you shouldn’t have done.

And there you are in the midst of sin caught by none other than the Devil himself, disguised this time as an unbelieving acquaintance of yours.  Have you noticed that lost people often seem to know more about how professing Christians are supposed to behave than those very Christians know themselves?  If we are honest, we have all experienced this embarrassing moment, probably more often than we’d like to admit.

I well remember the days of the old “Moral Majority.”  It was the beginning of the movement of the Christian Right.   From the 60’s through the 80’s our nation plunged into sexual immorality, dove into the depth of godless humanism, and sank into a pit of religious rebellion.  The church was becoming irrelevant.  Mainline denominations began a decline from which they have not recovered.  Evangelicals still enjoyed some success in growth but the sledding was tougher than it had been.

Society shifted.  The need for a “Moral Majority” movement seemed evident in that there was no longer a moral majority.  The majority of Americans were living life as they pleased with little or no regard for God, the church, or the Christian faith.  There was a time when America, at least in principle, held to biblical values.  That time was in the past.

The Christian Right came along, but many in the camp of Evangelicals ignored the pleas to impact the political issues and the impending loss of religious freedom.  Many, if not most, Evangelicals were satisfied with the freedom to worship, not realizing that if they gave away their first amendment right to religious liberty that one day their freedom to worship would also come under fire.  Religious freedom is now all but gone as evidenced by the cases of many Christian business professionals who have been attacked simply for practicing their faith in the marketplace.

Now we live in a post Christian era as far as society is concerned.  We, the church or Christendom in general, are no longer the majority.  The values of the Bible are no longer the basis of modern morality.  The left has now become the group that determines what is moral.  And the left is hypocritical.  Their standards of morality only apply in one direction.   They have steadfastly disproved their own mantra that, “You can’t legislate morality.”

So what is moral according to the left?  Anything goes unless you are perceived as coming from a political point of view is that is anywhere to the right of Hilary Clinton.  If you are on the right then you must live and act by the left’s skewed out of context interpretation of the Ten Commandments.  In fact, while you must live by these fuzzy standards, you must not enjoin anyone else to live by any interpretation of them.  You cannot mention God or Jesus but you must do what the left has determined that their vision of Jesus would do.

What would the left’s Jesus do?  Help the poor.  Never judge anyone.  Condone any and all sexual behavior.  Forgive any and all sins, regardless of the situation or the attitude and actions of the sinner.  The left’s Jesus has no enemies, he has no ill feelings toward anyone except those who believe that there is another Jesus, the One in the Bible.  A word of advice to the left, the biblical Jesus is nothing like the communist heroes you worship.

The reality is that the left is entirely unfamiliar with the Jesus of the Bible.  Mahatma Gandhi was quoted as saying, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” The problem with that is the he wouldn’t like my Christ if he really knew Him.  My Christ would cause him to drop his idolatry and false religion to follow Him alone.  But this made up Jesus gives cover for a whole new meaning to morality.

Recently we have seen this play out in the vast number of allegations that come against any number of politicians, actors, and others of some human notoriety.  The ideas of due process and justice have been thrown to the wind.  Any allegation, true or not, renders the accused useless and unfit for positions of political leadership or employment of any kind.  This is a new and twisted version of morality.

Here’s how it works.  If anyone alleges you made unwanted sexual statements or actions toward another person any time in your life you are immoral.  You deserve to be stripped of everything including your dignity.  But if you want to murder babies in the womb until the moment before birth you are a righteous saint who protects women.  In fact, if you are a supporter of Planned Parenthood you can favor killing babies after they are born if the mother and the medical personnel present deem that would be in the best interest of all concerned.  I would suggest that it is never in the best interest of the baby.  The fact that this staggering level of hypocrisy is totally ignored by the left ought to leave us astounded.

This is not morality.  This is wickedness.  Now, let’s be clear.  I am not suggesting that those who take sexual advantage of others deserve a pass.  Absolutely not.  What I am saying is that the left has assumed a self-given high road of superiority on the moral front and they are not worthy of such a lofty position.  In fact, it is not lofty, it is arrogant.  God is the sole source of moral superiority.  Murderers do not get to point fingers at people accused of other crimes to draw attention away from their own devasting guilt.

So what are we to do?  First, we must keep short accounts with God ourselves.  We must be holy as He is holy (1 Pet. 1:15-16).  We must repent because that is the prerequisite to forgiveness (Acts 3:19-20).  We must continue to hold up God’s standards of righteousness for all people as we share the Gospel as the only solution for those fail to live up to the standard (which is everybody!).

We must guard against condemnation based on allegation.  Facts and truth have a funny way of coming out in the end.  Your sin will find you out.  But allegations are often nothing more than just that.  Don’t forget about the allegations made against Jesus that led to His crucifixion.  The allegations were not true about Him, they were true about you and me.

The favorite verse of the left is Matthew 7:2a, “Judge not.”  Of course, most of the time when they use the verse, always taken by them out of context, they are themselves judging.  The passage doesn’t teach us not to judge, on the contrary it teaches us to judge righteously or correctly.  What it tells us not to do is not to condemn others to hell on the basis of our judgment.  That’s God’s job, not ours.  But to recognize what is sin, who they are that are sinners, and to plead with then to depart from their sin and embrace the Savior, that is the very call of the Christian faith.

Consequently, I will reject the “new moral majority” and opt for staying with the Old Moral Majority, made up of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and all who are surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

One comment

  1. Brian T. Sistrunk · · Reply

    Excellent, as usual! Great to see you Sunday! I hope that Grace will be your ‘regular’ church when you are not preaching elsewhere.
    How is Tim doing? I forgot to ask about him Sunday.
    B

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