Written by Dr Noel Weeks
Senior Lecturer in Ancient History
Sometimes we wonder whether the society around us has lost all moral sensitivity. Is there any point protesting against things when the society around us could not care less? Does it serve only to confirm the “wowser” image of Evangelical Christianity?
There is one clear indication that the society in which we live is not without a conscience. It is the fact that euphemism thrives. Indeed we might even speak of a culture which goes beyond euphemism to the cultivation of a prudish silence that threatens the reputation of eve those “famous” prudes, the Victorians. (I refer to the ones back in history, not to an Australian State.)
It is the children who die abandoned in cars who force the evil side of gambling addiction into public view. If it were not for that tragedy, would the mass media inform us of the power of the covetousness that is being fanned? How easily the gross unnaturalness of anal intercourse may be hidden behind academic discussion of whether homosexuality is innate or acquired. Only the grim AIDS statistics forces consideration of modes of transmission. If it were not for the reality of death, our society would cover our perversions with a veil of prudish silence and allow them to flourish unexposed.
There is one area in which the reality of death – brutal death, harsh, savage death – still benefits from a prudish silence and a host of euphemisms. It is the baby destroyed while yet in the womb. Why cannot we say that we are hacking apart and poisoning defenceless babies? Why can we show open heart surgery on TV but not an abortion? The answer is that one is merely bloody. The other is also unspeakably cruel and everybody knows it.
Can any Christian doubt that this cruel society must experience the judgement of God? Sure in the past some unwise voices threatened judgment when they were just displaying their moral superiority to the unwashed rabble. The issues of our day are far more serious. Violence and cruelty thrive and a great euphemistic shroud is drawn over it. A great hypocritical shroud is drawn over it: when the police beat demonstrators beyond our shores we protest. When babies are clubbed to death here we pretend it is not happening.
There can be no salvation without repentance. There can be no repentance until people face their own sins; the sin which they share with their neighbours; the sin which is passed by in silence. Individuals may well come to repentance without needed to face the sin of abortion yet there can be no widespread or national repentance until that sin is faced and confessed. We cannot preach the gospel to the nation without calling for repentance from national sins.
Isaiah 5:20 “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.