A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. This article is drawn from a sermon given on the Sunday before the federal election this past fall. Rev. Wallace Whyte is the minister of Melville Presbyterian Church, in West Hill, Ontario.
Once upon a time in Canada there was a general consensus on a few basic values. These were based on the Ten Commandments and the life of Jesus as recorded in the Scriptures. They weren’t always kept, but people acknowledged their validity and knew when they had missed the mark. Our civilization was founded and developed on these commonly shared values of truth, honesty, fidelity, mercy, generosity, and self-sacrifice. Now all that has been discarded. The worldly-wise people of our age think they have come up with a better plan for human life. Instead of submission to the authority of a higher power, each individual is his own god, and decides what is right and wrong in his own eyes. He or she looks in the mirror and asks, “What is good?” The mirror replies, “Good is what is good for me.” As a Grade 12 student wrote, “Whatever gets you through the night is all right.” This is supposed to produce inner awareness and fulfillment. What it has produced is inner emptiness, and a loss of meaning and nerve. Youth are confused, alienated and despondent. In place of a moral consensus based on God-given principles we have moral relativism. In practice it’s a moral vacuum. There is little respect for any form of authority. Bibles in school classrooms have been replaced by condom dispensers in the washrooms.
Walter Lippman warned in his book of nearly 40 years ago. “If what is good, what is right, what is true, is only what the individual chooses to invent, then we are outside the traditions of civility… it’s a proclamation of anarchy….” “Outside civility” and “anarchy” are appropriate words for what we face today. There is a general loss of manners, and respect for persons and property along with burgeoning crime. We lock our doors even in daylight. A guitar was stolen from just outside my church study door three weeks ago while a meeting was in progress in the next room. There is a state of lawlessness all across Canada. A CBC newscast recently reported that the people of Mosher River, a tiny isolated community in Nova Scotia are demanding police protection from a gang of local bullies who are stealing, shooting into homes and fire bombing cars. A recent Toronto Star editorial recited the oft-repeated theory that poverty is the cause of crime. That’s what they said after the famous New York blackout and looting spree. A few later studies revealed that most of the looters were employed and stole things they had no use for. If poverty is the chief cause of crime, why did the crime rate actually decrease during the Great Depression of the thirties? The current increase in crime is the direct consequence of the loss of reverence for God the Creator and the abandonment of the moral values given for our well-being. Jesus summarized God’s law in terms of loving God and one’s neighbour as one’s self. When God is not acknowledged, nor reverence given to him and his commands, the neighbour is ignored and the self degraded.
It’s claimed that this change has come because of our multicultural society with many religions. C.S. Lewis identified eight major values common to all of the great cultures of history and their different religions. These include truth, justice, mercy, the care of children, and duty to parents and the elderly. Our very existence as human beings depends on cooperation, sharing and caring. These values imply obligation, submission and service, in contrast to the theory that individuals are not accountable to anyone but themselves. A variety of cultures and religions does not require moral relativism. This is just a lame excuse to accommodate the rebellious libertine spirit of our times.
The big lie so readily believed is that life in cooperation with God is miserable and that freedom and enjoyment is realized when all this religious and moral stuff is relegated to antiquity.
The possession of the land which God had promised the Jews had brought them to a critical time in their history. They had high hopes for the future, but they must not forget that it was God who had brought them here, and the part he had played in their history. Prosperity can do people more harm than adversity. Moses warned them to remember and observe God’s commandments in this land. “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates” (Deut. 6:6-9). In Israel, we noted a few words of God’s law on little plaques fastened to the door frames of the hotel rooms. Why this emphasis on knowing and keeping God’s commandments? Is it an example of religious sectarianism and intolerance, an attempt at religious indoctrination? Was it to enforce religious inhibitions and put a damper on the good life? The reason is given, that “you might enjoy long life.” Note the word “enjoy” and “that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord promised you” (Deut. 6:2-3). The big lie so readily believed is that life in cooperation with God is miserable and that freedom and enjoyment is realized when all this religious and moral stuff is relegated to antiquity. It’s the same lie that the serpent used in the garden. Dostoevsky, the great Russian author, wrote that in a world without God “everything is permitted.” Samuel Johnston said that if your house guest professes atheism, you’d better count your spoons before he leaves. Of course there are unbelievers who are honest and kind. But we live in a cut-flower civilization, in which people try to maintain values cut off from their roots. Such flowers look pretty for a while but inevitably fade without bearing fruit. Nietzsche perceived that the death of God meant the death of moral values and he boldly proclaimed liberation from both. It is consistent then that Hitler, one of his students, formulated his theory of a master race, with dire consequences for the Jews and the rest of the world as well. Without God there is no rationale for the dignity and worth of each human being regardless of race or condition, and Hitler may justify his ethic on the same basis as you do yours.
“By keeping all God’s commands you may enjoy long life” and “it may be well with you.” God’s way is not only the right way but the best way, the overall happy and healthy way. You only need to be rational, not religious, to see the practical validity of God’s law. There is the natural law including gravity which if we disregard it brings injury or death to ourselves and others in the normal cause and effect pattern. It’s the same with the moral law. When it’s broken, whether by lying, cheating, stealing or killing, there are dire negative consequences for others and eventually the self, along with society in general. Think of the cost to our society in terms of mental anguish, physical suffering and death because people disregard the commandments of God. Think of the cost in dollars to our national economy over the past 25 years: the cost of theft, the cost of cheating through false claims on insurance and social services, and the cost of policing and the courts related to crime. Think of the cost to our health care system of immoral life-style diseases, including the various substance addictions and sexual perversity and promiscuity. To accept God’s guidelines for good living is a decision of reason and common sense as well as religious commitment.
One of the great proverbs of the Scriptures is “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people” (Proverbs 13:34). Righteousness lifts up a nation, honours it, ennobles it and gives it quality. A nation is exalted when its people exalt God. That’s the essence of righteousness. God is exalted by an attitude of reverence toward him and a spirit of thanksgiving which motivates people to hear and heed his word. Has the path of moral relativism and permissiveness made our nation better over the last 25 years? Are people healthier and happier, more content and secure living in rebellion against God? Are they more cooperative with one another? Are people more encouraged toward constructive use of their talents? Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a disgrace to any people. As a nation we are becoming disgraced and degraded. As George Jonas put it in his column, Canada has become a Big Nursery, a sheltered workshop ruled by left-wing philosopher princes, policed by human rights commissioners and run by an assortment of civil servants, social engineers and progressive academics. This government policy in the last 25 years has brought us into a state of economic distress, unemployment, burgeoning crime rate, crumbling social services, hostilities among the cultures, including English – French, gender warfare, declining family values and diminishing civil liberties. It is within this context that some speakers from all three of the old line political parties have had the gall to warn the electorate against the dangers of electing Christians to public office. Our ship of state is running on the rocks and the people on the bridge are preoccupied with such issues as political correctness and affirmative action.
Maybe this just sounds like another futile call for law and order. Actually it’s meant to be about God’s love and grace. Unless we acknowledge the truth and reason of God’s law, we will not know that we have missed its mark. Unless we perceive the righteousness of God, we will not see our own unrighteousness. Unless we acknowledge and confess our sin we cannot appreciate or receive God’s forgiveness. The good news is that in the life of Jesus we have a God-given ideal, a model of righteousness and of the good life. At the same time, by his earth and resurrection, God has provided for our forgiveness and for the overcoming of our unrighteousness. He is the source of new life. In fact by trusting in him and accepting his ethic as yours, you can experience new life today. His Spirit enters human hearts which are open to him, and give us the will and strength to begin living according to his will.