Big shift in our morality

Posted By REV. ERIC STRACHAN

Posted 2 months ago

"For the time will come when men and women

will not put up with sound doctrine."

(The Bible, 2 Timothy 4:3)

This past week I made numerous copies of Ken MacQueen's article in the latest edition of Maclean's magazine and distributed them to all of our leadership within the church. MacQueen's article is a 'must read' for every church leader, if not every Christian, for it gives us an in-depth look into the state of morality in our nation.

I'm sure many of us are up to speed in relation to what's happening in our culture, we are after all in what's been termed a 'post-Christian' culture, meaning as I understand it a society where the moral influence of the institutional Church has critically waned.

Most within our culture no longer look to the Church for guidance, they look elsewhere. Pollsters and futurists alike with their finger on the doom button tell us that unless there is a massive awakening within the institutional Church, the nails are slowly being hammered into its casket, it is all but dead, let's prepare to administer the last rites.

On the other side of the coin, society, as a friend often declares, "is going to the dogs." It's hard not to agree with her. The word may not often be heard in popular culture, and may sound as if it belongs to the pre-Victorian era, but the most apt characterization of contemporary culture is surely best expressed in the term "debauchery."

My Oxford Dictionary defines that as "excessive sensual indulgence." We are surely living in an era where the pervasive lifestyle motto is clearly, "Let's eat, drink, be merry, and indulge in every form of sexual pleasure."

In this week's headlines, an on-stage performer impersonates a sex act, saying afterwards that there was nothing wrong in doing that. At an Adam Lambert concert, the American idol has sex toys thrown on stage by screaming, adoring fans.

Across the ocean, the British are faced with another cultural phenomenon, "The Ladette Culture."

Simply described, it is a growing trend whereby young British women reject the idea of "acting like ladies" and instead become drunken, cavorting and brawling hooligans. Their antics across the Atlantic make the American program" Girls Gone Wild" look like a Sunday school picnic!

Let me stop. I could go on indefinitely, but I think that's suffice to make a point - we are living in a time, and in an era of 'debauchery.'

Back to Ken MacQueen. His article entitled, "What Canadians Really Believe," is essentially the results of research done by Angus Reid Strategies during the month of October of this year. The pollster discovered that same-sex relationships are acceptable to about two-thirds of Canadians. Eighty-seven per cent of us have no issue with sexual relationships between unmarried men and women, divorce is 'morally' acceptable to 84 per cent, and having children out of wedlock is no big deal, 79 per cent of Canadians believe that's okay! If those stats ruffle a few Christian feathers, then hold on for a moment and keep your cool. The biggest percentage of us here in the true North strong and free are more interested in animal welfare than the unborn in utero.

"When animals are abused," says Maclean's, "the public reaction is phenomenally strong." Abortion? It's okay for 66 per cent of us, an increase of five per cent from two years ago. Euthanasia? Only 22 per cent of us oppose it. Wow! ("What Canadians Really Believe," Ken Mac-Queen, MacLean's Magazine, November 30, 2009).

Some of my pew-hugging friends will be alarmed by such stats. Good! Maybe a bolt of lightning like this will arouse you, and the sleeping giant of which you are a part, the contemporary Church! I'm writing this article on Friday, November 27, a day before the anniversary of one of my hero's deaths, Dr. James Naismith of Almonte, Ontario, and three days before the celebration in the land of my birth, Scotland, of another hero of mine, St. Andrew, on November 30.

Naismith died on the 28th of November, 1939 at the age of 78. Few people know much about him. He was one of these lesser-known heroes who slips into the shadows of history, unheralded and little remembered. But if it hadn't been for him, there would have been no Michael Jordan, no Steve Nash, no Toronto Raptors, no NBA, hoops, high-school basketball courts. Yes, Naismith was the inventor of basketball, and a promoter of what was termed in that era "Muscular Christianity." He was a firm believer that Christianity was not for "wimps" but for real men who could combine their faith with passionate participation in sports.

I think the Bible's Andrew would have had a lot in common with Almonte's hero.

The white diagonal cross on the blue Scottish flag was there to remind every Scot for whom Andrew is the patron saint, that the brother of Peter was crucified as a martyr, as tradition recounts, on a diagonal crucifix.

There's much to learned from both Andrew and James Naismith, much that reflects on the current moral climate in the nation. The sinking Canadian culture of debauchery is much in need of a revitalized Christianity. That in fact, is its only salvation.

But it must be a radicalized Christianity, one that is prepared to come out of from behind stained glass and leave the comfortable pew behind. It must be a 'muscular' Christianity, fearless and bold. It must be a Christianity where once again people flock in their hordes to prayer meetings to be empowered by the Spirit to go out into the world and live a life of impeccable virtue and servanthood.

Canada's new morality will no longer be duped by a passionless, wimpish, hypocritical Church, but it can still be influenced powerfully by those who bear a striking resemblance in their character and lifestyle to that of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Rev. Eric Strachan is pastor of New Life Community Church in Petawawa

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