Culture’s Decline: The Absence of Common Sense
Lou Tiscione, Pastor, Weatherford Presbyterian Church (PCA)
What ever happened to common sense? Intelligent men and women are unable to discern the most basic things of reality. We’ve all just experienced the confusion of the international Olympic officials who were unable to distinguish between a man and a woman. The height of absurdity was evidenced by their need to measure testosterone levels in order to determine one’s gender! This is but one example of the decline of our culture.
What happened to our culture? Why is reality ignored? Where are those who are able to think critically about issues without being offended?
Western culture seems devoid of leaders with common sense. Common sense is the ability to think and make rational choices. God created men and women as rational, thinking creatures. This is not simply a doctrine for believers.
Yet current events seem more like fiction than reality. It seems we are being influenced by men and women who continue to deny reality. There are no principles by which decisions are made. It’s like the end of the book of Judges where everyone did what was right in their own eyes. We are living in a time of moral relativism.
Our relativistic culture has taken decades to build. It will take a concerted and ongoing effort to reverse cultural relativism.
A symptom of cultural descent into moral relativism is the impossibility of opposing parties to negotiate. People wonder why leaders can’t sit down together and come up with solutions to the problems we face in our country, like what is a man and a woman?
Since in a morally relative culture there are no absolutes, efforts to negotiate over any issue are ineffective. Each side is motivated by different principles. If there are any who hold to moral absolutes, they are marginalized and ignored. We are told that believing there are moral absolutes is pejorative and mean-spirited. But in the absence of moral absolutes negotiations fail and compromise is impossible. In this setting, common sense is absent.
Another symptom of cultural decline is understanding what is virtuous. Tolerance has become the primary virtue in society. This tolerance is defined as accepting every position as equally valid. Compromise now includes setting aside principles. The reality is that every view of or position taken on the same issue is not equally valid.
Tolerance previously meant respecting those who have differing points of view. Previously, one would never compromise on principles but would negotiate on non-essential details. Principles on which any position is based are never to be compromised because genuine principles are grounded in absolutes.
For example, we have been told that borrowing more money doesn’t mean increasing debt and this logical inconsistency is believed. We are told that men can define marriage any way they want, and a baby is not a baby until he or she is born. Yet our society can’t discern a man from a woman. Some say that a child has no right to life as long as he or she is in the mother’s womb. Mainline Christian denominations maintain that the Bible is man’s word about God rather than God’s word to man. Those same churches maintain that men are not accountable before God to be spiritual leaders; that men and women are not only equal but the same. These days no one seems to ask what the Protestant Reformers asked. “What saith the Scriptures?”
I’m sure you could continue this listing of the effects of moral relativism in our society. We continue to experience great frustration in this new relativistic culture. The answer to the question, “What happened?” is, “We happened.” We who know better have allowed a vocal minority to aggressively change our culture. We allowed prayer to be removed from our schools. We removed any discussion of God from our educational institutions. We continue to elect politicians who don’t know or refuse to do what is right. We elect men and women who make promises to give us something in return for our vote. Our culture has stopped doing justice, loving mercy, and acknowledging a sovereign God.
In the face of culture’s decline, I have hope in God. This world will continue to sink into godlessness until Jesus returns and makes all things right. May the church be concerned for God’s glory not the world’s acceptance. Jesus promised to build His church, and even the gates of hades would not prevail against it. We who believe in God’s revealed moral absolutes are to live by Him and for His glory.
