Answering Pat's Big Question

On a recent episode of The O’Reilly Factor Pat Buchanan brought up an interesting question, “Is the left winning the culture war?” Buchanan answered this question in the affirmative.
Buchanan is essentially right in what he affirms, but the most interesting portion of the segment dealt with the moral and ethical questions that concern the cultural divide. Buchanan, in the midst of his explanation of why Western society has fallen to its knees, could not give a reason why morality has fallen apart. The aim of this article is to answer Mr. Buchanan’s question.
The break down in morals and ethics, not only in America, but also in all of western society can be traced back to the destruction of two out of three fundamental foundations upon which this society stands. David F. Wells singles out these three foundations: tradition, authority, and power. Tradition is defined as, “the process whereby one generation passes on its wisdom, lore, and values. Authority on the other hand, in this context, should be defined as philosophical or theological authority, and power is simply the power to enforce the two former foundations. These foundations have been attacked in two crucial areas of people’s lives, the church and the family.
The origins of the destruction for the church took place with the rise of the Enlightenment in eighteenth century Europe; this period subjected all things, even God, to the sovereign throne of human reason. Before this period the western world had a moral compass, which was found in the nature of an unchanging God, who was the standard of goodness and order in the universe He created. This God had revealed himself in Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures, and for seventeen hundred years no one could raise a good objection. The Enlightenment proceeded to question the validity of Christian theism, which is the belief in a personal God who has revealed himself to mankind. Instead of the God of Christian theology they had a replacement, the god of enlightenment deism. Deism sees god as a watch maker who winds up the world and then lets it run on its own, not intervening in this world, or even caring. Of course after a while the logical outworking of this would be to do away with the idea of God all together, thus atheism was the logical conclusion. With God disposed of the next thing to be attacked was the bible, since the God of the scriptures no longer was thought to be a viable option among the intellectuals, who had a very big influence on eighteenth century society. These ideas would slowly creep into the “popular culture” and the churches. (Ever wonder where we get the phrase, “the man up stairs?”). The church had lost much of its credibility by the middle of the nineteenth century, and the authority and traditions of the church, including its moral teachings, had come under sustained assault. The scriptures came under heightened scrutiny and many churchmen found it difficult to believe in the traditions. As far as the church was concerned tradition and authority had taken very large blows. The next tradition and authority to break down was the family, and the movement known, as modernism would undermine it more so than the Enlightenment undermined the Church.
With the revolt against the all sovereign God of Christian theology in our rear view mirror we can now move on to the rise of modernization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and its affects on the family. Modernization is the process that requires a society to be organized around cities for manufacturing and commerce. Cities cause a unique problem of diversity, the more peoples that you have leads to the conflict of convictions. In order to coexist with different people the deeply held beliefs that where once public in the small towns, such as religion or morals, must know be privatized for the sake of peace. When this happens it causes a split mind, the man in the office is totally different from the man that he is at home. This causes religious beliefs to become irrelevant to every day life, because to work off religious principles may cause someone to be offended, because of their different religious truth claims that they hold. This diverse climate, combined with the Enlightenment intellectual ideas about God, created a cultural acid that ate through the fabric of a society that was once dominated by committed families. In this system the people develop two sets of morals, what their “public life” requires and what their “private life” requires. This is why politicians can say they are personally against abortion, but will vote to uphold it.
New inventions such as the TV and radio started to take time away from the family. The parents used to instill into their children moral values and wisdom for everyday life, but when TV and radio arrived the parent’s role was significantly reduced and TV became the main medium for distilling values into young people. This break down in the family was only added to with the easy access to pornography that the TV and the computer, because it was made more accessible. This development has had done untold damage to families, and our ideas of who men and women are as human beings. Like the church’s battled with the enlightenment, this led to the undermining of the family tradition and authority structures.
The Enlightenment siege caused people to doubt religious authority, and add to the mix the modern way of life, where a person can have their “private religious sphere” of life and their “public sphere” of life, due to pressure not to offend anyone, and a slow working poison had been injected into western society. The answer to Buchanan’s question lies in the fact that God and religion no longer play a role in the every day lives of even many average churchgoers, not to mention unbelievers, because not only has the person in the pew been infected with the modern illness, but so has the pastor, whose preaching no longer involves much talk about sin, but instead how to make more money, or feel good about oneself. Gone are the days when the preacher was a respected, intelligent member of the community.
We now live in a world that is experiencing the consequences of its ideas. The rate of divorce in our country is horrible, with about half of marriages ending in divorce, and the structure of the nuclear family, that the early Americans relied on to pass down their virtues to their children, has all but disintegrated in our generation, the obliteration of tradition and authority, in society and the home, has all but been completed. The reason our society cannot decide whether abortion, gay marriage, assisted suicide, or stem cell research is morally deficient, is because we have abandoned the idea of a God who is a moral lawgiver, with no absolutes people run blind. Instead we have unknowingly opted for the god of the enlightenment, who really does not care, and leaves it up to man to dictate mankind’s destiny. Modern man finds himself facing a cold uncaring universe where “might makes right”, because he has rejected the ancient wisdom of men like Saint Augustine who said to God, “ Our hearts are restless, until they find rest in you.” The only way out of the moral problems is to return to the theistic basis of our heritage. If we do not the third foundation of western civilization will stand, and without a moral conscience power breeds dictatorships.