100 Sermon Illustrations on Ethics

Story about example of euthanasia - it shocks us, but in short order the act may become unquestionable. Public debate leads to public acceptance. Another example is homosexuality.

Years ago a friend gave me what he called his "Formula: How to Know Right from Wrong." The formula asks four questions based on three verses in 1 Corinthians:

1. "'Everything is permissible for me' - but not everything is beneficial."

Question #1: Is it helpful - physically, spiritually, and mentally?

2. "'Everything is permissible for me' - but I will not be mastered by

anything" (1 Cor 6:12)

Question #2: Does it bring me under its power?

3. "Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will

never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall" (1 Cor 8:13)

Question #3: Does it hurt others?

4. "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory

of God" (1 Cor 10:31)

Question #4: Does it glorify God?

As simple as this formula may appear, it is powerful in developing conviction, if we are willing to use it. These questions can get rather searching. But they must be asked if we are to pursue holiness as a total way of life.

Concerning being "as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves". The world looks down on meekness and innocence (Nietzsche & Darwin) but Jesus exalts it. But this does not make Christians slaves. Companies and individuals (examples given) can have concern for others and still be "shrewd" or successful. Waste Management Corp. is one such company. Some Chicago woman got prostitutes out of their neighborhood by carrying baseball bats on their shoulders; they told the police they were going to play baseball (at midnight). Ethics requires thought and planning for the long haul.

An 8-year-old boy found an envelope containing more than $600 and returned it to the bank whose name appeared on the envelope. The bank traced the money to its rightful owner and returned it to him. God's in his heaven and all's right with the world. Right? Wrong. As a reward, the man who lost the money gave the boy $3. Not a lot, but a token of his appreciation nonetheless and not mandatory. After all, returning money should not be considered extraordinary. A simple "thank you" is adequate. But some of the teachers at the boy's school felt a reward was not only appropriate, but required. Outraged at the apparent stinginess of the person who lost the cash, these teachers took up a collection for the boy. About a week or so later, they presented the good Samaritan with a $150 savings bond, explaining they felt his honesty should be recognized.

Evidently the virtues of honesty and kindness have become commodities that, like everything else, have succumbed to inflation. What dollar amount would be a sufficient reward? A reward is a gift; any gift would at least be met with the presumption of genuine gratitude on the part of the giver. What does this episode say about our society? It seems our role models are more confused and misguided about values than their young charges. The young boy did the right thing. Yet doing the right thing seems to be insufficient motivation for action in our materialistic world. The legacy of the '80s has left us with the ubiquitous question: what's in it for me? The promise of the golden rule - that someone might do a good turn for you - has become worthless.

Kids want money for a good report card. Arguelles argues that "doing well is its own reward." When pregnant she read this advice in child-care books: don't bribe your child with ice cream to get him to eat spinach; it makes the spinach look bad. Our moral taste buds have been dulled by an endless onslaught of artificial sweeteners. A steady diet of candy bars and banana splits makes an ordinary apple or orange seem sour. So too does an endless parade of incentives make us incapable of feeling a genuine sense of inner peace (or inner turmoil).

The simple virtues of honesty, kindness and integrity suffer from an image problem and are in desperate need of a makeover. One way to do this is by example. I fear that in our so-called upwardly mobile world we are on a downward spiral toward moral bankruptcy. Like pre-World War II Germany, where the basket holding the money was more valuable than the money itself, we too may render ourselves internally worthless while desperately clinging to a shell of appearances.

Calvin and Hobbes on New Years resolutions:

Hobbes: How are you doing on your New Year's resolutions?

Calvin: I didn't make any.

See, in order to improve oneself, one must have some idea of

"good." That implies certain values. But as we all know, values

are relative. Every system of belief is equally valid and we

need to tolerate diversity. Virtue isn't "better" than vice.

It's just different.

Hobbes: I don't know if I can tolerate that much tolerance.

Calvin: I refuse to be victimized by notions of virtuous behavior.

#2980

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Princeton hires a pro-death ethicist vilified by the rest of the world.

Australian ethicist Peter Singer at least minces no words when he argues that the disabled and the unwanted should be killed. Not just passive euthanasia, but active, eugenic euthanasia for infants, the sick, and the elderly- everyone, to use his words, whose "life is not worth living."

No wonder he is so controversial in Europe and his home country that his speaking appearances are accompanied by angry protests from those he thinks are better off dead and those who care about them. In Austria, a major philosophy conference had to be canceled due to protests and threats from disabled groups. In Germany, he is compared to Hitler's theorist Martin Bormann. In Australia, he has been called the country's "most notorious messenger of death." Wherever Mr. Singer speaks, protesters in wheelchairs chain themselves to the barricades that have to be erected around his lecture sites.

In the United States, however, Mr. Singer is given an endowed chair at Princeton University. He has just been appointed to the Ira W. DeCamp Professorship of Bioethics at the University Center for Human Values. This is a prestigious position at one of America's most prestigious universities, joining a faculty that once included Jonathan Edwards and J. Gresham Machen.

British philosopher David S. Oderberg reported in The Washington Times the significance of this particular appointment. According to Mr. Oderberg's summary of his thought, Mr. Singer believes that since infants are not "rational and self-aware," they should not be considered human until they are at least one month old. Up to that time, they could be killed. Newborn babies have, to use his analogy, the same moral value as snails. As "non- persons," they are "replaceable," much like chickens and other farm animals. That is, if parents chose infanticide for a "defective" child, say, with hemophilia, and later gave birth to a healthy baby, the total amount of happiness would be greater and thus their act would be moral.

Mr. Singer's ethical theory seems to be based on a curious quasi-mathematical attempt to calculate the sum total of human happiness that would result from a particular decision or policy. On this basis, he claims to be able to show not only that voluntary euthanasia (such as physician-assisted suicide) and non-voluntary euthanasia (for the mentally incapacitated who cannot decide for themselves) are morally justified. He also believes that involuntary euthanasia for anyone who has become a burden to society is a moral act.

Not only is Mr. Singer purportedly an expert in bioethics; he is a major theorist for the animal-rights movement, the author of Animal Liberation and Animal Rights and Human Obligations. Although he defends animals, strictly speaking, he does not believe in "rights" (as in "human rights") at all: He dismisses them as "a convenient political shorthand" with no basis in any kind of divine or natural objective moral order. Nevertheless, it is ironic that while Mr. Singer equates the life of a newborn baby with that of a snail, he would be likely to urge that the snail not be mistreated.

Not that Mr. Singer isn't qualified to be a bioethics professor at Princeton, at least according to the prevailing academic standards. Research content seldom sparks controversy-unless it leans in conservative directions. What counts more in American academia is the amount and the "importance" of one's publications. The online bookstore Amazon.com lists 38 books published by Mr. Singer. These include, significantly, a number of introductory overviews and edited collections of readings used as college textbooks.

Universities responding to the call for "values education" and liberal arts colleges trying to replace their old theology requirements are now instead requiring a course in "ethics." Very likely, they are using Mr. Singer's textbooks.

America is having to wrestle more and more with ethical dilemmas, especially those posed by the new medical technologies. Since religious teachings are ruled out of bounds by policymakers, our country is turning to secular experts for guidance on moral issues. Hospitals set up "ethics boards"; bureaucrats hire consultants to draw up policies; and universities such as Princeton establish a Center for Human Values and bring on recognized authorities such as Mr. Singer.

The mere invocation of "ethics" may do more harm than good, serving as a process of rationalizing what is actually profoundly unethical. The value of "ethics" depends on the worldview upon which they are founded.

There was a time when Christians and non-Christians alike could agree that certain moral truths are "self-evident," that human beings have been "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Today, with the very concept of a Creator jettisoned by the intellectual establishment, these truths are not self-evident at all, but in fact are coming under harsh attack.

In today's thinking, rights are endowed not by God but by the culture-or even the government. And what the culture or government sees fit to endow, it can also take away.

Contemporary Americans turn instinctively to the academic establishment whenever they need "expert" advice, but secularist academicians may be the very worst people to turn to today for moral expertise. They are the most likely to hold the postmodernist myth that culture creates values. And since the academic subculture gives more status and more endowed chairs to those who are "progressive" (advocating cultural evolution) and "cutting edge" in their fields (advocating ideas that are radically new), the kind of moral advice that will emanate from our halls of learning is easily predictable.

There are major exceptions, of course, such as Mr. Oderberg, who teaches at the University of Reading in England. His critiques of Mr. Singer exemplify the service academics should be rendering. But those looking for an expert on the intractable moral issues of our day would do better simply to ask a pastor or another leader who has studied the Bible, believes in it, and can apply it in a sophisticated way.

Preparing such experts used to be the mission of Princeton University. Now it endows a Center for Human Values that decenters human values. Now it hires an ethicist who dismantles ethics, whose teachings if put into practice would establish, as Hitler never could, a culture of murder.

[see also #4680]

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How to help relativists see the flaws in their belief systems.

1. Defining relativism.

There can be no objective standard of truth or morality.

Truth and morality come from within ourselves. There is no God.

2. The flaws of relativism.

Relativism is not easily defended, and ultimately leads to isolation

and despair. Americans say they believe in God, but our actions betray

us. Much of our thinking is sloppy. All religions are NOT essentially

the same. Such thinking violates the law of non-contradiction. It is

also wrong to reduce religion to good feelings with no basis in fact.

Starting point: if God exists, then goodness can exist outside of

ourselves, and truths, values and moral choices can be "facts."

3. Naive relativists.

Most relativists are so out of convenience. It offers license. In

reality, most people rely on absolute truth. Christians believe in

absolute truth, but don't know everything about that truth.

4. Responding with questions.

Most people have an innate spiritual hunger and want to talk about it.

Ask questions to draw out that hunger, and don't assume they have an

adequate knowledge of Christianity.

5. God at work.

God is at work in the lives of people we meet.

[A sidebar article delineates the differences between Christians and relativists on Prime Reality, God, Humanity, Ethics, History and After Death.]

A skeptic's take on the Christian stance on sex:

In practice the Judaeo-Christian attempt to restrict sex is largely unsuccessful: Most parties to marriage-like relationships have affairs, commit adultery, visit prostitutes, or somehow circumvent the restriction, having to be deceitful and hypocritical in the process.

So in a 'family values' dispensation the choices for combining nature's kindly gift of sex with the great pleasures and benefits of domestic relationships are:

1. marriage breakdown;

2. deceit and hypocrisy;

3. an unnatural self-denial.

"Wrong" Must Be Explained

Lyle and Erik Menendez brutally killed their mother and father. The evidence is plain; no one denies it. So why is it so hard to find them guilt? Their defense attorneys argued persuasively that the brothers endured a nightmarish childhood of sexual and physical abuse, and that they were thus acting out of a kind of insanity that excuses them from first-degree murder charges. The arguments on both sides reduce to the same basic premise: wrong was committed.

The prosecution accused the brothers of murder and appealed to the public's sense that murder is evil. Likewise the brothers, in claiming they had been mistreated, appealed to a society that abhors child abuse. This was not a matter of arbitrary human laws being violated, it went much deeper. It was a matter of "right and wrong"-- a concept that is universal and unique to humanity.

No matter where people are found, they recognize that some things are wrong. Although human groups differ on what they prohibit, they all censor something. C. S. Lewis articulated this point well: "Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to--whether it was only your own family; or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have

one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked." (Mere Christianity, p. 5).

This is also personal. When I look inside myself I find this moral sense that I did not invent. I can find no explanation for it in the world--it must derive from beyond that realm. If there is nothing but matter in the Universe, and matter is the only eternal reality--then how do you explain this moral sense in humanity? Did it arise from rocks, trees, or animals? No, this moral sense is one of the clearest and most personal reminders that there is a God. --Brad T. Bromling, April 1994 Reason & Revelation--

God's pleasure -- not society's measure -- must be the standard by which Christians live their lives, Mark Brister said Feb. 1 at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Brister, pastor of Broadmoor Baptist Church, Shreveport, La., said the world's low standards for ethical living have created a moral abyss that makes truth relative to the whims of public opinion.

And unfortunately, Brister said, in too many cases the church has failed to uphold God's standard for truth.

"We have lost the standard of the truth of the Word of God," Brister said. "We have moved away from virtues to what are called values." He said values shift from day to day as they have no connection to any "moral tether."

In a day when criticism is as popular as talking about the weather, believers now more than ever must be sure to live out their convictions, Brister said on the school's Wake Forest, N.C., campus.

"The integrity of a life surrendered and committed to the Lord Jesus Christ is the best weapon that you have -- consistently, faithfully loving the Lord Jesus Christ," said Brister, who served as chairman of the Program and Structure Study Committee, which recommended the plan for the restructuring of the Southern Baptist Convention approved by messengers to the 1995 convention in Atlanta.

"The life that you live, the gospel that you share in the week, is a message that is also lived out in your home before your wife, before your children, before those who are close to you. It's absolutely essential that who you are in your public ministry is also who you are in your (private) life."

Too often Christians waffle on their beliefs, Brister said, because their churches aren't standing on the Word of God. Too many pastors are leading their churches according to what's popular -- not the Word of God -- for the sake of harmony, he said. "We are continuing to move the standards by what everyone else is doing," he said. "We preach against that socially and morally but we have done the same thing in ministry. God says you better make sure that the standard of your life is the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not let the standard of measure in your life become others' displeasure, or you will wind up spending your ministry lowering levels of dissatisfaction in your churches, putting out grass fires instead of winning people to Jesus and reaching a lost world for Jesus Christ."

Happiness and joy, Brister said, may only be found when Christians are living according to God's standard. "It pleases God when our prayer life lives and we have active, vibrant, communication with our Heavenly Father," he said. "Don't ever fall out of love with Jesus. Maintain that close intimate personal relationship." Brister said the Bible promises believers won't be disappointed when they live according to God's will.

"God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness to the man who pleases him," Brister said. (Eccl 2:26)

Not very long ago, I published an article called “Ethics Without Virtue” in which I criticized the way ethics is being taught in American colleges. I pointed out that there is an overemphasis on social policy questions, with little or no attention being paid to private morality. I noted that students taking college ethics are debating abortions, euthanasia, capital punishment, DNA research, and the ethics of transplant surgery while they learn almost nothing about private decency, honesty, personal responsibility, or honor. Topics such as hypocrisy, self-deception, cruelty, or selfishness rarely come up. I argued that the current style of ethics teaching which concentrated so much on social policy was giving students the wrong ideas about ethics. Social morality is only half of the moral life; the other half is private morality. I urged that we attend to both.

A colleague of mine did not like what I said. She told me that in her classroom she would continue to focus on issues of social injustice. She taught women’s oppression, corruption in big business, multinational corporations and their transgressions in the Third world — that sort of thing. She said to me, “You are not going to have moral people until you have moral institutions. You will not have moral citizens until you have a moral government.” She made it clear that I was wasting time and even doing harm by promoting bourgeois morality and bourgeois virtues instead of awaking the social conscience of my students.

At the end of the semester, she came into my office carrying a stack of exams and looking very upset. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “They cheated on their social justice take-home finals. They plagiarized!” More than half of the students in her ethics class had copied long passages from secondary literature. “What are you going to do?” I asked her. She gave me a self-mocking smile and said, “I’d like to borrow a copy of that article you wrote on ethics without virtue.”

One of our greatest educational problems is a deep moral confusion. Increasingly, today's young people know little or nothing about the Western moral tradition.

This was recently demonstrated by "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno. Leno frequently does "man-on-the-street" interviews, and one night he collared some young people to ask them questions about the Bible. "Can you name one of the Ten Commandments?" he asked two college-age women. One replied, "Freedom of speech?" Mr. Leno said to the other, "Complete this sentence: Let he who is without sin...." Her response was, "have a good time?"

Mr. Leno then turned to a young man and asked, "Who, according to the Bible, was eaten by a whale?" The confident answer was, "Pinocchio."

As with many humorous anecdotes, the underlying reality is not funny at all. These young people are morally confused.

William Bennett has recently released, through he auspices of the Heritage Foundation, "The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators"--a statistical portrait of the nation's behavioral trends since 1960. His findings are alarming. According to Bennett's study, the population has increased 41% while violent crime has

jumped 560%. Divorces have quadrupled. The teenage suicide rate has risen 200%. Illegitimate births have increased 400%. Today 30% of all births and 68% of black births are illegitimate. (1994)

THREEFOLD DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN

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In the New Testament completely adequate teaching is provided as to the principles of conduct the Christian will follow if he truly presents his body “a living sacrifice” (Rom 12:1) and walks “in the Spirit” (Eph 5:9). In Titus 2:11-14 is to be found a convenient outline around which to group these principles. First in this passage it is majestically stated that God’s grace brings us salvation. But His grace then teaches us to live soberly, righteously and godly. These are three important lines of responsibility: the believer is to live soberly with regard to himself (Rom 12:3); righteously with regard to his fellow men; and godly with regard to the Lord. The same truth can be more or less expressed in a somewhat different way: We should seek to live in accordance with the precepts of grace because (1) this will please God (Heb 13:16) and will demonstrate our love for Christ (John 14:15); (2) it will help others (Matt 5:16; Titus 3:8,14); (3) it will bring true joy and blessing to our own hearts (John 15:10-11).

The following compilation, though not exhaustive, contains some of the most important of these precepts.

DUTIES TOWARD GOD

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I. Positive

1. Trust Him. (Mark 11:22; John 14:1, ASV; Heb 11:6)

2. Love Him and seek to know Him better. (1 John 5:2; Phil 3:10, 15;

Jam 4:8)

3. Be thankful to Him; worship and praise Him. (John 4:23; Col 3:15;

Heb 13:15.)

4. Serve Him. (Rom 12:6-8, 11; 1 Cor 15:58)

5. Pray to Him. (Luke 18:1; Rom 12:12; Eph 6:18; Phil 4:6; Col 4:2; 1

Tim 2:2)

6. Live in accordance with His will. (Rom 12:1; Heb 13:21; Jam 4:7)

7. Walk in the Spirit. (Gal 5:16, 25; Eph 5:18)

8. Hold fast to sound doctrine and contend for the faith. (2 Tim 1:13;

Heb 13:9; Jude 3)

9. Witness for Christ. (John 15:27; Acts 1:8; 1 Pet 3:15)

10. Do everything as unto Him. (1 Cor 10:31; Eph 6:7-8; Col 3:17,23-24)

11. Be diligent in devotion and study of His Word. (John 5:39; Col 3:16;

2 Tim 2:15; Jam 4:8; 1 Pet 2:2)

II. Negative

1. Do not have idols. (1 Cor 10:7, 14; Eph 5:3; Phil 3:19; Col 3:5;

1 Tim 6:17; Heb 13:15; 1 John 5:21)

2. Do not receive false teachers. (2 John 10)

3. Do not mock or speak against God. (Gal 6:7; Col 3:8)

DUTIES TOWARD OTHER HUMAN BEINGS

--------------------------------

I. Positive

1. Love all, especially our brethren. (John 15:17; Rom 12:10;

1 Cor 16:14; 1 Pet 1:22; 1 John 3:23; 4:7)

2. Be sympathetic and compassionate. (Eph 4:32; Phil 2:4; Col 3:12)

3. Forgive and forbear. (Rom 12:19; Eph 4:32; Col 3:13)

4. Deal honestly and fairly. (Rom 12:17b; 13:7; 13:13; 1 Thess 4:12;

Jam 2:1)

5. Do good to all and help all. (Rom 12:13; Gal 6:2, 10;

1 Thess 5:15; Titus 3:1; Heb 13:16; Jam 4:17; 3 John 11)

6. Tell the truth. (Eph 4:25)

7. Be courteous and live peaceably with all. (Rom 12:18;

1 Pet 2:17; 3:8)

8. Treat others as we would like for them to treat us. (Luke 6:31;

Rom 12:17a)

9. Provide a good example for others. (1 Cor 8:9, 13; Phil 2:15)

10. Urge brethren to good works and seek to restore backsliders.

(Gal 6:1; Heb 10:24)

II. Negative

1. Do not lie or bear false witness. (Eph 4:25; Col 3:9; Titus 2:3)

2. Do not steal. (Eph 4:28; 1 Pet 4:15)

3. Do not murder. (1 Pet 4:15)

4. Do not commit adultery or fornication. (1 Cor 6:18;

1 Thess 4:13)

5. Do not judge others or speak evil of them. (Rom 14:13; Titus 3:2;

Jam 4:11; cf. John 7:24)

6. Do not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. (2 Cor 6:14)

7. Do not have fellowship with professing Christians who live in

scandalous sin. (1 Cor 5:11; 2 Thess 3:14)

8. Do not go to law with other believers. (1 Cor 6:lff)

9. Do not glory in men. (1 Cor 3:21)

10. Avoid troublemakers and useless disputes. (Rom 16:17; 2 Tim 2:23;

Titus 3:12)

11. Do not have unpaid debts. (Rom 13:8)

DUTIES TOWARD SELF

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I. Positive

1. Be holy. (1 Pet 1:15; 2:11; 2 Pet 3:1)

2. Cleave to the good and do good to all. (Rom 12:9; 1 Thess 5:15)

3. Study the Word of God and meditate on sacred things.

(1 Thess 4:11; 2 Tim 2:15)

4. Grow spiritually. (2 Pet 3:18)

5. Think on good things. (Phil 4:8)

6. Think soberly of yourself. (Rom 12:3)

7. Be ambitious in the right way. (1 Cor 12:31; 14:1; 2 Cor 5:4)

8. Be content with what God gives you. (Heb 13:5)

9. Rejoice in the Lord. (Rom 12:12; Phil 3:1; 4:4; 1 Thess 5:16)

10. Live in the light of the judgment seat of Christ. (1 Cor 9:24)

11. Judge yourself and confess sins to God. (1 Cor 11:31; 2 Cor 13:5;

1 John 1:9)

12. Conserve time for good purposes. (Eph 5:11; Col 4:5)

13. Cultivate your mind. (1 Pet 1:13)

14. Do useful work. (Eph 4:28; 2 Thess 3:12)

15. Keep your body clean and in good health. (1 Cor 6:15; 6:19,20;

10:31; Rom 12:1)

II. Negative

1. Abhor evil. (Rom 12:9; 1 Thess 5:22)

2. Avoid pride. (Rom 12:3; Jam 4:10; 1 Pet 5:6)

3. Do not conform to or love the world. (Rom 12:2; 1 John 2:15)

4. Do not fellowship with evil. (Eph 5:11)

5. Do not sin through anger. (Eph 4:26)

6. Do not worry. (Phil 4:6; 1 Pet 5:7; 1 John 14:1,27)

7. Do not be lazy. (Rom 12:1)

8. Do not use filthy speech. (Eph 4:29; 5:4)

9. Do not become drunk. (Eph 5:18)

10. Do not complain. (1 Cor 10:10; Phil 2:14)

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CONDUCT UNDER GRACE

-----------------------------------------

The above list certainly shows that there are many specific commands

given to the Christian in the New Testament with regard to his conduct.

Nevertheless life under grace is not defined down to the very last detail

as was life under law. Instead grand principles are provided whereby we

may test all things if occasion should ever arise where we were in doubt

as to what we should do. For such principles the following verses should

be carefully studied:

Romans 6:4; 2 Corinthians 6:17; Ephesians 4:1; 5:1,8,15;

Colossians 1:10; 4:5; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; 4:1; 1 John 2:6.

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The celebrated historian Barbara Tuchman called our times, "The Age of Disruption, a period when we've lost belief in certain kinds of moral understanding of good and bad."

A reporter for "The Indianapolis Star" once asked the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner what she thought was most needed in the next century.

"Probably personal responsibility," she replied, explaining that this means "taking responsibility for your behavior and your expenditures and your actions, and not forever supposing that society must forgive you because it's not your fault."

Cited in The Best of BITS & PIECES

Average person tells 50 lies a day. According to an article in the July 27, 1983, issue of USA Today, a psychologist says we all tell spouses, friends and others 50 lies a day to cover up our social errors. "Even in this age of honesty, we all lie daily to cover our 'social errors,"' says California psychologist Jerald Jellison.

He says we commonly use: "I have a headache." " I had to work late." "I didn't want to hurt your feelings."

"I'll get right on it." "It's in the mail." "I was only kidding." "I don't expect anything in return." "I was trying to help." "Let's have lunch." "Of course I care." "I never lie."

Though the chorus of voices decrying belief in God has been humming in the ideological background for centuries, it seems to have reached a crescendo with the emergence of a movement that has been dubbed the new atheism. The trademark of this new brand of atheism is its vitriolic attack on religion. To its advocates, religious beliefs are not only false; they are also dangerous and must be expunged from all corners of society. The pundits of the new atheism are not content to nail discussion theses on the door of religion; they are also busy delivering eviction notices to the allegedly atavistic elements of an otherwise seamlessly progressive atheistic evolution of Homo Sapiens.

Given the rhetoric, one might be forgiven for thinking that some new discoveries have rendered belief in God untenable. Curiously, this drama is unfolding in the same era in which perhaps the world’s leading defender of atheism, Antony Flew, has declared that recent scientific discoveries point to the fact that this world cannot be understood apart from the work of God as its Creator. This is no small matter, for Flew has been preaching atheism for as long as Billy Graham has been preaching the Gospel. Unlike Flew and others, the new atheists seem to forget that the success of their mission hinges solely on the strength and veracity of the reasons they give for repudiating religion. Venom and ridicule may carry the day in an age of sensationalistic sound bites, but false beliefs will eventually bounce off the hard, cold, unyielding wall of reality.

A good example of a claim against religion that does not sit well with the facts of reality is issued in the form of a challenge to the believer to “name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever.”(1) We are expected to agree that no such action or statement exists, and then conclude that morality does not depend on God. The problem is that the conclusion does not follow from the premise. The fact that a non-believer can utter moral statements and even act morally does not logically lead to the conclusion that morality does not depend on God, much less that God does not exist. This challenge misunderstands the believer’s position on the relationship between morality and God.

The believer’s claim is that the world owes its existence to a moral God. All human beings are moral agents created in God’s image and are expected to recognize right from wrong because they all reflect God’s moral character. The fact that human beings are the kinds of creatures that can recognize the moral imperatives that are part of the very fabric of the universe argues strongly against naturalism. Unlike the laws of nature, which even inanimate objects obey, moral imperatives appeal to our will and invite us to make real decisions on real moral issues. The only other parallel experience we have of dos and don’ts comes from minds. Thus when the atheist rejects God while insisting on the validity of morality, he is merely rejecting the cause while clinging to the effect.

Without God, morality is reduced to whatever mode of behavior human beings agree on. There is no action that is objectively right or wrong. Rape, hate, murder and other such acts are only wrong because they have been deemed to be so in the course of human evolution. Had human evolution taken a different course, these acts might well have been the valued elements of our moral code. Even Nazi morality would be right had the Nazis succeeded in their quest for world dominance. Unless the world contains behavioral guidelines that transcend human decisions, there is no reason why anyone should object to such conclusions.

Though some religious people do not live up to the moral principles they prescribe, it is not true that genuine religious devotion makes no difference to one’s moral commitments. It is missionaries, and not atheists, who regularly give up their own comforts and accept unbelievable amounts of pain and suffering to better the lives of societal outcasts, not just through preaching but also through education, technology, and humanitarian relief. Our failure to live up to what we know to be right provides empirical evidence for the need for God’s intervention in our lives.

Those who insist that objective morality makes no difference to human autonomy still expect morality to guide the behavior of others. That our society is saturated with transcendent moral sentiments accounts for the popularity of some television programs that arrest our attention night after night. Perhaps ninety percent of the shows they contain depend exclusively on our ability to apply objective moral standards to the actions of the characters. Should the Judeo-Christian moral bank close its doors to our cultural psyche, the bankruptcy of human-centered morality would eventually send our spiritual tentacles scouring for an alternative transcendent anchor. Thus were the new atheists to succeed in their quest, the result would not be the elimination of religion but the entrenchment of a different religion. As Ravi Zacharias has warned, eventually, the real choice for the West will not be between Christianity and atheism but between Christianity and some other religion. Beware of ethical naturalists bearing moral gifts.

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1. Christopher Hitchens, “An Atheist Responds,” The Washington Times (Saturday, July 14, 2007).

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Copyright © 2008 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was moved to HolwickID #210]

Who/what should set the standard for right and wrong?

1. FEELINGS -- What's right is what you feel good after; what's wrong is what you feel bad after. (Some only feel good stoned or after killing someone!)

2. FAMOUS PEOPLE -- Which ones? Donald Trump or Mother Teresa? Bill Clinton or Rush Limbaugh? Mick Jagger or Amy Grant?

3. MAJORITY -- Vote on abortion or homosexuals in the military. (Majority was wrong in Hitler's Germany; Majority of Southern states in favor of slavery.)

(Adapted from a sermon by Bob Russell of Louisville, KY)

"Put It To The Test"

Every Christian must make many moral decisions. We cannot expect all control and discipline to be exerted from the outside. No one can do all our thinking for us. The Christiain is most stable when he has the maturity to apply principles taught in Scripture to his own problems. Consider these guidelines for determining when a practice is right or wrong.

THE PERSONAL TEST: Will doing this make me a better or worse Christian?

THE SOCIAL TEST: Will doing it influence others to be better or worse

Christians?

THE PRACTICAL TEST: Will the results of my doing it be desirable?

THE UNIVERSAL TEST: If everyone did this, would it improve or degrade

society?

THE SCRIPTURAL TEST: Does the Bible endorse it, or expressly forbid it?

THE STEWARDSHIP TEST: Will my doing this waste the talents God gave me?

THE MISSIONARY TEST: Will I have the proper influence to bring others to

Christ?

THE CHARACTER TEST: How will it influence my moral & spiritual stamina?

THE FAMILY TEST: Will it bring honor or embarrassment to my family?

THE PUBLICITY TEST: Would I want other Christians to know about it?

THE COMMON SENSE TEST: Does it agree with plain, everyday common

sense?

THE FINANCIAL TEST: Will it rob me of my financial ability to do good?

THE FAIRNESS TEST: Is it honest, and is it practicing the golden rule?

--Mastin Lake Family Newsletter, Huntsville, AL

The nation is still in shock over the recent shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. But imagine if someone were to argue that the killings were no big deal; that we had no right to judge? Of course, such a stance would be roundly condemned, and rightly so. But when it comes to children murdered long ago as part of pagan religious practices--well, we're hard put to find anyone willing to condemn that.

Recent news reports of an archaeological find in Argentina show just how far cultural relativism has permeated our culture.

Last month, a team of National Geographic explorers discovered the amazingly well preserved bodies of three Incan children between the ages of 8 and 14. All three were apparently sacrificed to the local mountain gods some 500 years ago.

Incan human sacrifices usually involved strangulation or a blow to the head, but experts conclude these children were buried alive, probably after being forced to drink a mixture of corn liquor and hallucinogenic drugs.

The photos of these murdered children are heart- rending. Of course, if American parents were to treat their children this way today, the press would be horrified, and rightly so. Yet, few press accounts of the recent discovery express the slightest revulsion against the Incan practice. In fact, the experts cited appear to be going out of their way NOT to make any moral judgments.

For example, "Newsweek" quotes Mario Lazarovich, a director of Argentinean cultural heritage, says the children "exude an air of tranquility . . . their death was not violent, and this allows us to see the ritual from an Inca point of view: this was not a time of terror and horror, but of peace and worship." Tell that to the kids who were drugged and then buried alive.

This unwillingness to judge the practices of other cultures is an example of cultural relativism--an effort to deny that Judeo- Christian culture is any better than any other. Most anthropologists will defend even the most barbarous customs as legitimate practices, which no Westerner is allowed to judge.

But the truth is, some cultures ARE morally superior to others. It's a fact that the Judeo-Christian culture recognizes that humans are created in God's image and that human life is therefore sacred. And most non- Christian societies hold no such view. That's why they practice ritual murder, as the Incans did, or cannibalism, as the Korawai tribe in New Guinea does today. It's why the ancient Spartans left their weak and disabled infants in the wilderness to die of exposure or to be eaten by wild beasts. It's why the Chinese tolerate the killing of unwanted female infants.

Cultural relativism, which is so predominant on American campuses and across the culture as well, is a cancer eating at the moral foundations of our society. For if we can't make moral judgments about the murder of Incan children five centuries ago, how can we judge the murder of American children today?

So when we read news accounts that reflect the cultural relativism so popular among the educated elites, let's use them as an opportunity to teach our children and our neighbors the rich heritage Christianity gives us--which alone provides the deep and enduring respect for life without which civilized life is simply not possible.

We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

-- Omar Bradley, General, USA (Retired)

Christina Hoff Sommers, who teaches ethics at Clark University, tells a wonderful story — one that exposes the bankruptcy of modern ethics. After Sommers had written an article arguing that a just society begins with individual virtue, one of her colleagues berated her for holding to “an antiquated, Victorian, view of ethics.” Modern ethics, her colleague informed her, is social justice. It is concerned not with personal morality but with causes, such as saving Brazilian rain forests and preventing Third World exploitation by multinational corporations. Three months later the same colleague came back sheepishly to Sommers and said: “I have just had a shocking experience in my ethics class. Half of my students cheated on a take-home exam. And this is an ethics course!” The woman confessed she needed to reread Sommers’s article about private virtue.

When people see how flawed the modern view of ethics is, it opens a grand opportunity for a Christian apologetic. Our modern dilemma in ethics began with the French Enlightenment. Like Sommers’s colleague, the Enlightenment thinkers believed that Christians were wrong about individual sin, that people were good, corrupted only by social structures. So reforming social structures would produce a perfect society.

For 200 years ethicists have tried to create ethical systems without God. The result has been the dismantling of any objective standard of right and wrong, leaving the individual to act according to his or her own “personal preference.”

But what happens when someone’s “personal preference” happens to be cheating on an exam? Or stealing? Or — for example — collaborating with murderous Nazis? That is exactly what happened in the very homeland of the Enlightenment. During wartime France the Vichy government rounded up Jews and handed them over to the Nazis. Seventy-five thousand French Jews perished in the death camps. French President Jacques Chirac recently acknowledged that shameful chapter of his country’s history. “France,” he said, “the homeland of the Enlightenment, and of the rights of man . . . committed the irreparable. Breaking its word, it handed over those who were under its protection to their executioners.”

How did the Enlightenment notion of the “rights of man” break down in wartime France? Well, ethical precepts in themselves have no moral force unless individuals view themselves as responsible to a Supreme Being. The French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre understood very well that ethics had no meaning once God was removed from the equation. “It doesn’t matter how you act,” Sartre said, “as long as you ‘authenticate yourself’ by an act of the will.”

Thus, to borrow a trenchant Francis Schaeffer illustration, you can decide to help an old lady across the street — or to push her into the path of an oncoming car. For Sartre, because there is no God, it doesn’t matter what one chooses to do. So the next time someone argues that ethics has nothing to do with obedience to God, show him exactly where that logic leads. And remind him that it is precisely because God exists that there is ultimately no getting away with cheating — or, for that matter, murder.

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Copyright (c) 1995 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

A husband was looking through the white shirts hanging in his closit. He was examining the colars, trying to find a clean one. His wife observing what he was doing, and said to him, “If it’s doubtful

it's dirty.”

This same line of reasoning may be applied when trying to decide if something is right or wrong.

(Source Unknown)

#13732

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You've seen the stories: They're nothing short of horrifying. An 18-year-old girl at her high school prom delivers her baby in a bathroom stall, then leaves the dead child in a trash can and returns to dancing. We shudder at the breathtaking callousness and disregard for human life; yet for some scientists, such behavior is only natural.

They believe that humans are robots, programmed by our genes, to dump newborns into garbage cans if our gene-controlled brains determine that such cold- hearted actions are in our Darwinian best interest.

Well, in his new book, "THE WEDGE OF TRUTH: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism," author Phillip Johnson challenges the naturalistic view of human nature. Our true nature, he says, which finds such acts morally wrong, is profoundly different.

Johnson starts with this provocative question: Why exactly is it wrong to kill babies? In the case of the 18-year-old who abandoned her newborn in a bathroom, the MIT evolutionary psychologist and science popularizer Steven Pinker wrote in the NEW YORK TIMES that the young woman was acting on a "genetic imperative." That means, basically, that impersonal forces of natural selection had molded her behavior, through her genes, to jettison any drag on her future "reproductive success."

Pinker wrote, "If a newborn is sickly, or if its survival is not promising," a mother may cut her "losses, and favor the healthiest in the litter or try again later on."

Yet this explanation, even if true (and there are many reasons to doubt it) simply doesn't answer Johnson's first question. Pinker's answer doesn't explain why we find the actions of the 18-year-old mother morally reprehensible. If there really is no difference between human beings and other animals, then we would no more condemn the young woman's abandoning her newborn than we would condemn her for clipping her fingernails or plucking her eyebrows.

But that isn't the case. We do condemn such behavior. The tragic young woman in question was convicted of homicide and sent to prison. Why? Because human beings recognize the reality of a moral realm which is not derived from nature. As Phillip Johnson argues, evolutionary psychologists like Pinker can explain that moral realm only by suspending their naturalistic rule of reasoning.

Pinker himself admits that infanticide is wrong, yet he is more or less helpless to explain WHY he thinks it's wrong. Instead, he flatly proclaims. "Science and morality are separate spheres of reasoning."

But not so fast, objects Johnson. If we genuinely know that some actions, such as infanticide, are wrong, then that knowledge must have an ultimate source or cause. Our moral knowledge, therefore, must in some sense be "immaterial" or "supernatural," stemming from an ultimate source other than nature.

For Johnson, as for the great ethical philosophers throughout the centuries, that ultimate source is God. In THE WEDGE OF TRUTH, Johnson the feisty law professor makes a compelling case that our moral nature is not Darwinian but theistic. And it's a case that you and I can and must make to our neighbors.

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Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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The notion that civility is on the decline is a perennial one. If the BBC website’s Have Your Say slot had existed in Tudor England, you can be sure “Mike from London” would have used it to rail against insolent costermongers and youths playing their lutes too loudly. The thesis has been challenged – a report last year from the Young Foundation argued that civility is thriving, especially in disadvantaged areas – but the perception seems unshakable: one survey, in 2009, found that 90% of Britons believed manners were getting worse. Still, whatever the facts, we can all agree it would be bad if true. Or can we? After reading the philosopher Emrys Westacott’s book, The Virtues Of Our Vices – subtitled A Modest Defence Of Gossip, Rudeness, And Other Bad Habits – I’m less sure. He claims rudeness isn’t all bad; and before telling him to shut his face, we should politely consider his argument.

Our debates about civility are undeniably odd. Have you noticed, for example, how those who complain most about declining manners are enraged by “political correctness”? Set aside the fact that PC is largely imaginary, an emission of foul mind-gas from the brain of Richard Littlejohn. Even if it weren’t, it would be a case of too much politeness towards others, not too little. Also: is rudeness based on obliviousness the same as rudeness based on contempt? And so on. Maybe we need a philosopher, after all.

The idea of applying philosophy to everyday life has been back in fashion for a while, but as Westacott points out, it isn’t always as practical as it purports to be. Bringing Heidegger to bear on your views on the death penalty isn’t of practical use most days. And while thought experiments like the one about pushing a fat man off a bridge are a staple of “practical ethics”, here’s hoping you never face that dilemma. Westacott focuses instead on “microethics”, the philosophical conundrums we encounter hourly. “Precisely because rudeness is quite common,” he writes, “it is not a trivial issue... in our day-to-day lives it is possibly responsible for more pain than any other moral failing.”

At the core of rudeness, Westacott argues, is the violation of social convention, which leads to a crucial distinction – between violating (out of selfishness) a convention to which one otherwise subscribes, versus simply not subscribing to it. We tend to assume most rudeness belongs to the former category. But conventions change, and “rudeness” may often just be the label we give to the friction between two people following different rules. When sons started abandoning the convention of calling their fathers “Sir”, it was presumably perceived as rude. It’s disconcerting to realise that “music in train carriages ought not to be audible to others” might prove just as historically contingent.

“The problem is not that people today are trampling underfoot the time-honoured rules of polite behaviour; the problem is that these rules are in flux,” Westacott writes. Rudeness is the price we pay for “living in a dynamic culture”. That may not make it good, exactly, but it makes it an inevitable by-product of something many of us think of as good. Maybe that explains why critics of PC also bemoan the rise of rudeness: both complaints are reactions against change. A world with no rudeness, and no material for stories about “PC gone mad”, would be one that had come to a standstill.