Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
An evangelist of recent years worked hard to explain how the Christian faith is truly the most reasonable, consistent, and adequate answer to man’s needs summarized modern western cultural fragmentation by highlighting four pervasive dynamics in our culture that arose from widespread rejection of God’s Word and authority. In the past generation, our nation has seen unprecedented shifts in the four dynamics he describes.
Hedonism led to loss of shame.
Pluralism led to loss of reason.
Secularism led to loss of meaning.
Multiculturalism led to tribalism.
Hedonism is when one’s own desires and pleasures become the standard and central purpose to a person’s life. Self is not only center, but also the ultimate purpose. You can imagine how this affects behaviors, relationships, marriages, politics and more. Drug cartels, thieves, murderers, gang members and such exhibit various forms of hedonism since they live only for their own pleasures and power. Those who live for physical pleasures and reject all suggestions that their choices in life may be harmful or even wrong are more commonly viewed as hedonistic. There are other aspects, but all share a loss of the sense of shame. You hear news reports of murder trials where we hear remarks about “how they didn’t show remorse.” Of course, if you are the center of the world, then why should you feel shame for doing what you want to do? You aren’t accountable to anyone else. No one else has the moral authority to even look down on you. And in regards to sexual appetites and behaviors? Our news and culture overflows with advanced loss of moral shame. A loss of shame flows from hedonism.
Pluralism in this description of our culture is not simply the fact of multiple nationalities, religions and philosophies living together in one nation. It is not the belief that all people have individual equal value and rights as every other human being, which by the way, came from the Christian worldview. Secular pluralism is the position that all cultures and groups are equal in all things so no person should be able to say anything that would suggest a deficiency or problem in the views or behavior of any other subgroup. Further, group identity becomes more relevant than individual value. There are many other characteristics of pluralism, but all of them in some manner undercut and destroy reason and logic.
Consider: If every religion is equal and right, then no religion can be truly better or truly correct. It is easy for us to see that religions are all different, many are incredibly different. To say all are correct is to say that totally conflicting beliefs are the same. In our own land, such belief ultimately leads to such things as the inability of many modern people to agree that Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin were wrong, or even harder to say, were evil. After all, they did what they thought was right. “Who am I to judge them?” In logic, which is the basis for consistent human reasoning, one of the three foundational concepts is that of non-contradiction. The formula often given is “A is not non-A.” You must be able to make clear distinctions between things that are the same (A) and things that are different (non-A). If you cannot make basic distinctions of sameness and otherness, you have no remaining basis for logical, reasonable life and relationships. If anyone or any person or group can define anything in any way they wish, chaos will follow. Our current inability to differentiate natural women from natural men and the subsequent distortion of virtually every category of behavior also flows, in part, from pluralist ideals.
If the concepts of pluralism were applied to math problems, then any equation would be as good as the next one. And any answer from whatever equation you chose is also as good as anyone else’s choice. Yet, would you like to cross a high bridge designed by pluralistic mathematics? The same works with morality. Some moral directions have horrific consequences for those who chose them and for others they harm. In moral matters, pluralism leads to loss of reason because it becomes socially or even legally makes it “off-limits” to say anything that is perceived as derogatory toward anyone else’s moral belief and behavior. And often, this is selectively applied. This approach removes the basis for civil, reasonable discussion and usually ends up in emotion, anger, and division between different factions. Such a culture also tends to become a battleground of competing group interests. Pluralism leads to loss of reason and reasonableness with each other.
Secularism leads to loss of meaning. In pluralism, some folk may still gain a high degree of personal meaning from their religion which may tell them that they have value beyond this life as well as something after death. Whether their religion is true or not does not change this personal meaning. Secularism, however, destroys the foundation needed to establish true and transcendent human meaning. Transcendent refers to meaning that comes from beyond the things of this life, world, and universe.
The fundamental aspect of secularism that destroys meaning is the belief that there is no God. Therefore, man is on his own. Further, belief in God is delusion and folly and should be resisted, reduced and if possible, eradicated. As a result, religious people may be tolerated, ridiculed, hated or worse. Evolutionary belief is an essential part of secularism so anything that threatens evolutionary philosophy is an attack on the very core of their belief systems. Since secularism rejects a Creator, it provides no value for human existence beyond the short, difficult fact that we live. We are accidents in a random universe of chance and decay. The best we can do is to make ourselves comfortable in the present. Of course, who is to define “what is best” since there can be no certain and true standard for anything? Governments must use increasing law and force to control their populace since there are no common societal values for life. Bottom line, if the universe randomly created itself (a scientific absurdity) and we are also randomly generated bits of that universe (equally absurd), we really have no personal value that matters to anything in this life or beyond this life. Secularism, for all its bold promises, can never give true, lasting meaning to anyone who understands what it is.
But we who have heard the new teaching of Jesus, and by his Word and Holy Spirit have experienced the authority of God’s love, regeneration and spiritual life have realize that shame is good when it leads us to Jesus. We can appreciate the good of other cultures without ignoring the bad in others, or in our own. We can seek to live together with all people, not needing to divide into endless groups and subgroups. And we have valid and adequate reason for what we believe and do, and in Christ we find meaning for this life and all eternity.
Even our secular, increasingly fragmented culture often uses the thought of “tribalism” to describe the ever-growing groups and subgroups in our culture, government, and more, much of this helped by Internet and social media enabling individuals to find and interact with those whose beliefs and desires are closest to their own. Also a tendency to avoid honest interaction, let alone friendly relationships with those outside our comfort zone increases the tribalistic dynamics of our nation. Multiculturalism was originally a desire to ensure mutual respect, understanding, and interaction with people outside our common experience. But the commendable values of respecting others has been subverted and redefined so that hostilities, grievances, visceral hatreds, and more become favored avenues of societal interaction. Even riots, mass theft, and other antisocial and dangerous activities are excused and even at time encouraged. Multiculturalism led to tribalism of the worst sort – enclaves of anger, division, attack, and never-ending dissension.
There’s much more that could be said on each of these four growing dynamics of our culture, but the only lasting answer is found in Jesus Christ, the one who loves all people, who died for all sins, who rose bodily from the grave to show us his power over sin and death, and who promises not just resurrection for all who turn to him in faith, but life in the new heavens and earth that will never know the corruption, injustice, warfare, disease, and horrific realities of this age. Trust in Him.
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