As Story-keepers, we are called to communicate the gospel to screenagers. Communication is not data transfer. So, it is important that we recognize the inner dynamics of the ‘image-culture’ and understand how it is changing the way we ‘see’ and ‘listen’ and ‘think’. I needn’t remind you that the world has changed. The best metaphor to describe the change we are experiencing is T20 cricket (although it arrived late in the scene).

If you had followed the T20 format, you’d agree with me that the face of the game has changed so much. The ‘hit and giggle’ game ( as it is referred to) is so much different from what it once used to be – Test Cricket which is a slow game played for 5 whole days and with no guarantee of a result. T20 is also different from the one-day game wherein the ‘start’ and the ‘finish’ provide for both ‘excitement’ and ‘aggression’ that people crave for. The T20 version of the game speaks the ‘Generation Next’ language. It promises electrifying entertainment through a shorter format to cater to the changing tastes, needs and aspirations of the spectators.

Did you know Cricket would have lost its sway over people had it not kept itself in-step with the changing times? Test cricket became one-day cricket in an attempt to capture the imagination of sports lovers. When one-day cricket was plagued by ‘predictability’, ‘politics’, ‘match fixing’ and ‘boring middle overs’ and our interest in the game was slowly dying out, cricket managers have bowled us over with a ‘googly’ (or maybe it’s doosra). T20 cricket has changed the way we played (and watched) cricket. We live in a changing world. Wake-up! Our world has already changed – (just in case you didn’t know!)

We can do almost anything we want to do. We can transplant heart and other parts just like how we change spares for our motorbikes. We are exploring cutting edge technology in cloning. We can do almost anything we want to do except tell the difference between right and wrong. We do not know what is right?, What is wrong? and worse the difference between the two. Now, how do we then live? For some, what is morally right is determined by the culture (the Cultural argument). For others, What is morally right and wrong depends on the situation (situational argument). For a few, what is morally right is of what brings the greatest good (read pleasure for Jeremy Bentham and pleasure for the greatest numbers for John Stuart Mill). For many, what is morally right thing is up to the individual (the argument of individualism). We live in a multiple choice world and We live our lives as if truth is somewhere in the middle. Perhaps, the way forward is tolerance of various positions (The tolerance argument) since what is right for one may be wrong for another and vice versa.

We may not be aware of all the philosophical and religious tags that academia attaches to these moral stances but they are not entirely strangers to us. They enter our life-space and living rooms through Popular culture. Let me map the changes that popular culture has brought in our understanding of what is right and what is wrong.

Firstly, popular culture promotes the idea that right and wrong is to be decided by the pleasure-principle.
Secondly, popular culture promotes the idea that right and wrong is to be decided by public consumption
Thirdly, popular culture promotes the idea that right and wrong is to be decided by popular opinion
Fourthly, popular culture promotes the idea that right and wrong are to be decided by individual preferences and feelings.

Let us analyze these moral relativistic arguments that come to us through popular media.

1) The argument of pleasure states that what brings pleasure is Right and what doesn’t bring pleasure is wrong.

• The difficulty with this position is that
• not all pleasures are good (erg., sadism),
• not all pain is bad (erg., warning pains)
• It does not specify what kind of pleasure
• And then, should our gauge be pleasure for the individual, the group, or the race?

2) The argument of public consumption states that what is morally right is determined by the public culture to which one belongs The difficulty with this position is

• Simply because someone is doing some-thing does not mean one ought to do so.
• Then racism, rape, cruelty, and murder would automatically be morally right.
• Further, if each individual/community is right, then how do we resolve conflicts between different individuals/communities.
• It would give rise to a “might-is-right” world.
• Finally, if morals are relative to each individual /social group, then can opposite ethical imperatives be viewed as right. Everything cannot be right, certainly not opposites.

3) Similarly, the difficulty with the argument of popular opinion

• The whole human race could be wrong. ( it is still logically possible)
• What if the majority of the human race decided that suicide was the best “solution” to the world’s problems? Whole communities, like Jonestown, have committed mass suicide.
• Today we like to think the race has a better moral standard and people opt for better choices. But better implies a best or an objective standard outside by which the progress can be measured.
• If morality is a matter of popular opinion then, as Marshall McLuhan has suggested, ethical norms could be established by a computer which would record simple majority decisions.

4) The argument of individualism states that the morally right thing to do is what is morally right for me. The difficulty with this position is that

• · It implies that an act can be right for someone even if it is cruel, hateful, or tyrannical.
• It would then render society inoperative
• If everyone literally “did his own thing,” chaos would result. ( Imagine what would the traffic be like in a world like this)
• The very fact that we appoint judges and courts points to the fact that we are not happy with the idea that everyone should make their own rules about what is right or wrong.

Moral relativism is nothing new. It has been around for quite some time within philosophy. Heraclitus, Epicurius, Jeremy Bentham, Stuart Mill, Joseph Fletcher and host of other philosophers have evolved their versions of moral relativism. But, what is new is that moral relativism is no longer in the fringes of academic debate. It has slowly but steadily seeped into mainstream consciousness. Slowly but steadily our sense of identity, dignity, responsibility and destiny been sucked into the quick sands of post-modernity. Our popular belief that nothing is true and everything is permitted has fragmented our lives more than ever before. We have lost of the wonder of being human – the capacity to discern the right from the wrong, to reciprocate love, to be responsible etc.

In the words of Robert Fitch, we live today in an age when ethics has become obsolete. It is superseded by science, deleted by psychology, dismissed as emotive by philosophy. It is drowned in compassion, evaporated into aesthetics and retreats before relativism. Is there a good reason to believe that morals are absolute? Is belief in moral absolutism reasonable? I believe so. And it is reasonable to believe in moral absolutism rather than be peg our entire lives in the delusions of grandeur.

C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, gives a very helpful illustration. Imagine we are a fleet of ships sailing in formation to a particular destination. Now if the fleet is going to arrive safely without mishap, three things are necessary.

• First, the individual ships must be seaworthy. Their insides must be in good working order so they can keep afloat, steer well and have the motive power to make the journey.
• Second, they must be aware of the other boats so they don’t bump into one another and so cause harm to themselves and others.
• Third, they must have some idea about where they are heading – why they are afloat in the first place. It will be of no used if, after a good journey, they end up in Calcutta when they were supposed to get to New York.

The first of these we could describe as individual morality – virtues, vices and character building, which we don’t hear much about from our modern ethical philosophies. We have got to keep ourselves shipshape for the journey. The second we could call social ethics – how to get along with one another and help, rather than hinder, others on the journey. The third issue is – why are we here at all and where are we supposed to be going? Many modern philosophers avoid this issue as they have no answer to it. And yet this is the most important question of all. For morality to be of any use there must be some point to it all. We have got to know our destination.

Ravi Zacharias has reminded that we may believe in anything. But everything we believe need not be right. It is easy to follow the fad but with every loss of value we leave a small tear in the fabric of our society. Sociologist Emil Durkheim, almost a hundred years ago predicted a rise in suicide, violence and mental illness when a community loses its values base and therefore meaning. He called this condition ‘anomie’ and considered it the worst condition of society. And such a threat is very real today. The remedy lies in our return to the moral values outlined by our maker.

Times are changing, with morals in decay,
Human rights have made the wrongs okay.
Something’s missing, and if you’re asking me,
I think that something is the G- O- D.
To label wrong or right by the people’s sight,
Is like going to a loser to ask advice.
And by basing your plans on another man’s way of living life
I is creating a brand of ethics sure to be missing the punch,
No count morals that are out to lunch.
They’re sliding away ’cause everything is okay,
It was taboo back then but today we say, “What the hey.”
We gotta back to the principles found in the Word,
A little G-O-D could be society’s cure.

Conversations: Are there rules to live by? (By Samuel Thambusamy)

Read Gen 39: 1 – 23

1) What is this passage about?

2) Who are the characters mentioned in this passage? What do we know about them?

3) Lust presented itself to Joseph through an open invitation for sexual intimacy outside of marriage! What are the contemporary means that lust presents itself today? Imaginatively present Joseph’s response to any one of these.

4) Imagine Potiphar’s wife telling Joseph this:

It all depends on who you are
It all depends on where you are
It all depends on what you feel
It all depends on how you feel
It all depends on what is praised
It all depends on what is raised
What’s wrong today is right tomorrow
Fun in Egypt may be ancient near East’s sorrow
It all depends on points of view
Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt or may be Canaan too
In Canaan, do what the Canaanites do
In Egypt do what the Egyptians do
If people are narrow-minded then slip into the conservative shoe
May be if tastes seem to agree we have morality
But where there are conflicting trends
It all depends, it all depends…

5) How would Joseph have responded to such appeals to moral relativism? How did Joseph decide between what’s right and what’s wrong? Can we have moral absolutes in our postmodern world?

6) How do people decide what’s right/what’s wrong today? What do you think about them? How do we decide what’s wrong and what’s right?

7) What is God telling me through this passage? What am I going to do in response to God’s Word to me?

1. A refutation of moral relativism http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio/05_relativism.htm

2. Moral Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Midair- by Greg Koukl
http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video/Philosophy/Ethics/Moral-Relativism/22199

Further readings

A. Introductory articles

1. Morality – Where did our system of moral conduct come from? Did it evolve? Was it learned? Or was it perfectly designed? www.allaboutphilosophy.org/morality.htm

2. Morality Apart From God: Is It Possible?Is God necessary for ethical systems? Some modern philosophers argue He isn’t, but Ray Cotton insists that there is no point to morality without God www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/god-ethi.html

3. Is Morality Relative?The logical need for the existence of God for Morality, without God there can be no right or wrong www.truthnet.org/Christianity/Apologetics/Morality1/

4. “That’s True for You, But Not for me.” (Relativism) Dr Paul Copan http://bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=54&TopicID=10&CategoryID=9

B. Next level

1. Did Morals evolve? by Greg Koukl
http://bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=29&TopicID=10&CategoryID=9

C. Advanced level

1. No God! No Good by Dr. William Lane CraigAbstract – Theism and naturalism are contrasted with respect to furnishing an adequate foundation for the moral life. It is shown that on a theistic worldview an adequate foundation exists for the affirmation of objective moral values, moral duties, and moral accountability. By contrast, naturalism fails in all three respects. Insofar as we believe that moral values and duties do exist, we therefore have good grounds for believing that God exists. Moreover, a practical argument for believing in God is offered on the basis of moral accountability.
http://bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=293&TopicID=10&CategoryID=9

2. Morality Without God: A House Built on Sand by Garry K. Brantley, M.A., M.Div. (Apologetics Press :Reason & RevelationNovember 1995 – 15[11]:86) http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/282

by Samuel Thambusamy

I have realized that so much of our evangelism needs to be ‘without words’. In world driven by images ‘visuals’ attract our attention. And so, we need to be seen and not heard (to borrow words from a popular petra song). We are used to talking. Not just talking but talking loud. We say things that we don’t believe, things that we don’t practice and even things we don’t intend. It is easy to preach a sermon. You can google-search and pull it off the net. There are books that give you sermon outlines or you re-play a sermon that you have heard elsewhere. God has been gracious and even used our ctrl C + Ctrl v hermeneutics and copycat homelitics. But then, God want us to make a definite difference. He wants our lives to speak out the gospel ‘loud’ and ‘clear’. Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the light of the earth”. We must shine…shine….shine. If we are lit on the inside, it is difficult to hide it. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Jesus encouraged his disciples to shine the light for other people. He never asked us to be salesmen for lights and tubes. And often times, that is what we are. Mere salesmen roleplaying and mouthing big sales talk. Jesus asked us to live – and live a good/meaningful lives at that. Our lives are blogs that people read. They know how we live lives, how we find meaning, how we cherish relationships, how we are guided by godly wisdom, how good our values are, how consistent we are in living out our beliefs, how we are Jesus-like… etc. Those who see us would quickly spot the difference. Our ‘desires’, ‘needs’, ‘tastes’ ‘choices’ and ‘hungers’must be different – gospel informed and gospel transformed.

At the adventure camp that I went to, this was the particular challenge for the leadership team. How do we speak/share the gospel without words. How do we help people see God behind the scenic beauty? How do we help people listen to God? How do we help them experience God and set out on the adventure of knowing God? We recognized that we must help them join in our journey of knowing and following God. We decided to invite those young people to be our ‘friends’ and see us – our lives. Hopefully, our lives have spoken the gospel without words….

Jesus wanted us to be ‘lights’ so that as we shine in the dark corners of our world (at least the part of the world we step in day-in and day-out they will get a better understanding of God. So of them will also praise our father in heaven. How I live my life matters more than what I tell my friends, neighbours and casual accquaintances.

As an “emerging” new christian, living in the world of despair we must commit ourselves to missional living. We can (and must) shine ‘hope’ into their lives and situations…if only we live out the gospel! We must engage in evangelism. But as one follower of Jesus discovered,” use words only if necessary”. Let’s pray that we find grace to speak the gospel “without words”