{"id":1132,"date":"1993-05-01T08:03:01","date_gmt":"1993-05-01T08:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/may-qvalues-or-moralsq\/"},"modified":"2014-02-02T07:27:55","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T07:27:55","slug":"may-qvalues-or-moralsq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/may-qvalues-or-moralsq\/","title":{"rendered":"Values Or Morals?"},"content":{"rendered":"

May I express my opinion about you being so fat? Not according to a recent interview I heard on the radio! It seems a woman journalist adorned her averaged sized frame with a \u2018\u2018fat suit\u2019\u2019 that made her appear 150 pounds heavier than normal. She then spent the day mingling among the unaware, expecting to feel embarrassed and awkward. Instead, the journalist was outraged at the comments and innuendoes made about her obvious obesity. In the interview she called such comments as much \u2018\u2018racist\u2019\u2019 and \u2018\u2018bigoted\u2019\u2019 as ethnic comments might be about blacks or Hispanics. Uncalled for, yes, but bigoted? Racist? If I make a value judgment about obesity and conclude that such is not good, even wrong, am I not allowed to express such a conclusion? Now perhaps the way in which I express myself is right or wrong, but is the opinion itself wrong? This is a case of society, when it wants, making a simple value into a serious moralism.<\/span><\/p>\n

But let\u2019s turn the coin over. Again, on the radio, I heard a reaction from a pro-homosexual to a \u2018\u2018right-wing fundamentalist type\u2019\u2019 being delivered as \u2018\u2018who made your set of values better than anyone else\u2019s set of values?\u2019\u2019 Now we have the case of society, as it wants, making a serious moral issue into a casual \u2018\u2018set of values.\u2019\u2019 As we all have experienced, it is getting more and more difficult to conform to the standard of the politically correct thought-police.<\/p>\n

Where did we lose such a good word (excuse me for making a judgment) as \u2018\u2018value?\u2019\u2019 And where did we lose any connection to what is really moral or not? Can we really exchange these two words at will? Perhaps even the church has been so enamored by society\u2019s use of \u2018\u2018value\u2019\u2019 that we sold the word to them at a high price. There were some among us years ago who thought \u2018\u2018values clarification\u2019\u2019 in the schools was a good and noble thing. \u2018\u2018At last we will teach good values to our kids.\u2019\u2019 Did we?<\/p>\n

My 1976 American Heritage Dictionary does an acceptable job of defining \u2018\u2018moral\u2019\u2019 and \u2018\u2018value.\u2019\u2019 Something that is \u2018\u2018moral\u2019\u2019 has to do with \u2018\u2018the goodness and badness of human action, the discernment of good and evil.\u2019\u2019 Something that is of \u2018\u2018value\u2019\u2019 has \u2018\u2018utility or merit.\u2019\u2019 It means to \u2018\u2018rate according to relative estimate of worth.\u2019\u2019 In other words, Something that is moral is absolute, totalitarian, black or white, whereas something that is of value is utilitarian, good only because it serves you well. The value to you of a certain object or even concept might be great at one point but poor at the next. It is the circumstance that dictates value.<\/p>\n

Is it no wonder why our society likes the word \u2018\u2018value\u2019\u2019 but hates the word \u2018\u2018morals?\u2019\u2019 Morality (Victorian, legalistic, Puritanic) is a barrier to self-expression and man\u2019s basic drives and desires. Values, on the other hand, reduces an adulterer to a sexual partner, homosexuality to an alternative life-style and abortion to a choice. And in case something is left in the philosophical middle, we have what the Rev. Charles Curran called \u2018\u2018proportionate reason,\u2019\u2019 that there may be a compelling reason to do something even though it is wrong.<\/p>\n

What will be the result on our society as we have known it? Is this what C. S. Lewis said in The Abolition of Man,\u00a0 would finally produce the destruction of humanity? Oliver Wendell Holmes envisioned this type of society in his The Common Law when he wrote, \u2018\u2018Truth is the majority vote of that nation that can lick all others.\u2019\u2019 Holmes also wrote in a personal letter, \u2018\u2018So when it comes to the development of a corpus juris the ultimate question is what do the dominant forces of the community want and do they want it hard enough to disregard whatever inhibitions must stand in the way.\u2019\u2019 Alan Bloom traced the word \u2018\u2018values\u2019\u2019 as we have been using it, back to Nietzsche. Nietzsche\u2019s influence on Adolf Hitler is common knowledge. In Auschwitz today, the words of Hitler are recorded: \u2018\u2018I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality . . . we will\u00a0 train young people before whom the world will tremble. I want young people capable of violence–imperious, relentless and cruel.\u2019\u2019 The results of a Germany where the elite ruled without morals and with only relative values is all too familiar.<\/p>\n

Opinions as to what the church ought to be doing in this kind of society are varied. Some hawks are out in the streets, city halls and abortion clinics crying the message of morality to a sinful society. Some doves are withdrawn into the security of their closets, waiting for the end. It seems to me that the early church was somewhere between the hawks and the doves. The Roman church was not advised to line the streets of Rome holding hands and protesting abortions, homosexuals and child abuse. But neither did Paul neglect to have morality taught to the church or to speak personally to Roman guards to whom he was chained. The early church worked on society from the inside out and on the church from the inside and the outside. Paul did not command the church to take judgment of the lost into its own hands. He did, however, command the church to \u2018\u2018judge those who are within\u2019\u2019 (1 Cor 5:12) so that at least the church would be a testimony of morality and virtue.<\/p>\n

But are we distinguishing between morals and values in the local church? Can we still talk about absolutes and commitment to the truth or are we simply making a bid for a sizeable market? The nineties is not the decade for commitment nor for behavioral absolutes. We may laugh when we mistakenly sing the old song, \u2018\u2018Take my life and let me be\u2019\u2019 but that is truly an accurate expression of today\u2019s average Christian. When people come to our church do they bring with them, as Dave Breese wrote, \u2018\u2018The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life.\u2019\u2019 Then he concludes, \u2018\u2018That is the heart of existentialism.\u2019\u2019 Utilitarian values fit well into the thinking of such people. Morals are frightening, restricting and inhibiting to the deeper cultivation of self-esteem.<\/p>\n

I have no doubt that preaching on moral issues such as fornication, cursing, drunkenness, modesty or being unequally yoked to unbelievers will not be popular to some. For popularity, we must put all of these issues into the context of \u2018\u2018values\u2019\u2019 as they relate to each person\u2019s situation. Give them an \u2018\u2018out\u2019\u2019 in case their situation becomes too tough. In this way we can say we have upheld a standard and also been on the cutting edge. \u2018\u2018Conversely,\u2019\u2019 as Ravi Zacharias writes, \u2018\u2018upholding the moral law as an expression of his love, in response to the love of God, is the sound of the Christian worshipping his Maker. The moral law, then, is not seen as an imposition upon him from without; rather, it is a commitment born out of gratitude to the God whose love he has experienced. This relationship, undergirded and motivated by love, in recognition of who God is, forms the foundation of right and wrong.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May I express my opinion about you being so fat? Not according to a recent interview I heard on the radio! It seems a woman journalist adorned her averaged sized frame with a \u2018\u2018fat suit\u2019\u2019 that made her appear 150 pounds heavier than normal. She then spent the day mingling among the unaware, expecting to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[137],"class_list":["post-1132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-values-manners-morals"],"yoast_head":"\nValues Or Morals? - Aletheia Baptist Ministries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/may-qvalues-or-moralsq\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Values Or Morals? - Aletheia Baptist Ministries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"May I express my opinion about you being so fat? 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