Moral Decay - Getting Past the Tropes and the Hype

In a recent speech at the University of Notre Dame, Trump’s Attorney General William Barr decried the relentless attacks by ‘secularism’ on the world’s religious heritage.  He portrayed the last 50 years as a moral decline due primarily to the rise of secularism and its nefarious side effects.

This speech is a reflection of one of the basic tenets at the heart of the current culture wars.  Many in the U.S. believe that we are in a pitched battle between the forces of good – i.e. the Christians – and the forces of evil – i.e. the agnostics, atheists, Muslims, socialists, communists, progressives, etc.

The catalog of ills that are supposedly the result of having our religious institutions ‘under attack’ and losing our Judeo-Christian morality includes abortion, illegitimate children, birth control, promiscuous sexual behavior, drug abuse, suicide, same-sex marriages and violence to name a few.  

Barr makes the argument that the march of civilization is due primarily to the influence of religious institutions in concert with our divinely-inspired embrace of liberty and freedom, and that the rise of humanist or secular thought and moral relativism is eroding the moral fiber of our nation.

The first response to Barr’s diatribe is a healthy skepticism about the data.  Drug and alcohol abuse, suicides, illegitimacy, euthanasia and other ills have long histories and cannot be laid at the feet of the so-called attack of secularism on moral principles.  According to WHO statistics, the suicide rate in the U.S. along with most countries has been more or less flat since 1950 when it was first collected.  Teenage pregnancy has declined by 70% in the past 20 years.  Barr's Trump-like portrait of a nation in moral free-fall is simply a dark self-delusion.

In fact, the last 50-70 years have brought in a period of relative peace, prosperity and happiness that is unique in human history.  Many of the current tragedies of opioid deaths, depression and loss of purpose are more directly attributable to changes in our economy, social media and a looming sense that we are at war with one another than any loss of moral compass.  Barr and his hyper-religious associates are contributing to this discord, not helping it.

If indeed our purported moral decline is due to a lack of religious affiliation and influence, then perhaps we need to look for inspiration to a period when religion was supreme.  How about the Middle Ages?  That was certainly a period of intense religious fervor and allegiance. Everyone was a Christian – no agnostics or atheists lurking around in those days!  And what a tremendous moral example that era is!  Witch burnings, heretic burnings, wholesale slaughter of innocents by warring monarchs, many of which were sanctioned if not directly initiated by the same Catholic church that Barr so loyally lauds today. 

It was also a time when the great majority of people were enslaved as serfs and women had absolutely no rights.  Was that part of the absolute morality to which Barr wishes to return?  If religious institutions had not been forced to adapt to humanist and progressive ideals over the last two hundred years, then women would still be virtual slaves and not enjoying the rights and opportunities that they have today.

Barr is also convinced that the Founders' religious spirit has been lost and that we would be wise to emulate their moral rectitude.  He might want to sound out a few Native Americans and some African Americans about the Founders' morality before he gets too sentimental.  Interestingly, many of the Founders were Deists and steeped in the questioning spirit of the Enlightenment, unlikely to agree with Barr on many doctrinal points.

And if secularism is indeed accelerating the decline of western civilization, then certainly Europe must be in the most advanced stage of decline, as secularism is almost universal there and churches are more or less empty.  But wait, Europe has far less violence, less people in prison, similar suicide rates, less drug abuse and more social harmony than the U.S. by almost any measure.  What’s going on?

I understand the disorientation that Barr and his fellow travelers feel in today’s culture.  Sexual mores have changed dramatically, gay people have come out of the closet and been given the right to marry, birth control (gasp!) is being used by an ever-increasing percent of the population, making pre-marital sex commonplace.  Movies, the Internet and TV have mature themes with lots of profanity, sex and violence.  Abortion is legal and, though declining rapidly due to increased availability of birth control (no thanks to the Catholic church!), fairly commonplace.  Drug use is rampant, alcoholism still ruins many lives and families, and suicide continues to be a disturbingly frequent escape for many people.

Some of these cultural phenomena are disturbing, some are simply the way human society is evolving.  Is there an absolute morality we can apply to any of these trends?  Hasn’t morality always been, to some extent, relative?  The commandment says do not kill or murder, yet we bombed civilian targets in every war in the last century on the basis of the ‘relative’ morality of the just war theory. 

Is sex immoral outside of marriage?  Can anyone reasonably argue that sexual conduct can be dictated by some absolute moral principle or set of rules?  Sexual behavior can hurt people and we draw the line clearly at rape and child pornography, but as in so many things, it is the spirit of kindness and respect that must guide our sexual behavior, not some relic of a religious doctrine that once justified slavery and stoning of adulterers.

Mr. Barr and his fellow religious fundamentalists (who, by the way, only represent a minority of religious thought - there are many Christians who think very differently) are not comfortable with ambiguity.  They need rigid structures in their belief system as a bulwark against doubt and insecurity.  But alas, life is not so simply categorized and legislated.

Is there really any substantive difference between the moral and ethical guidance that comes from religious education and a secular or humanist one?  I have many relatives and friends who were brought up in totally non-religious homes and they are incredibly well-balanced, ethical human beings.  They may have much more tolerant views of sexuality (including gay marriage) and abortion, but are these really the issues that determine the moral course of human history?  Isn’t the morality of social justice, peacemaking, generosity and environmental sustainability more relevant to our hopes for the future than the personal moral issues that Barr and the religious right seem obsessed with?

The practices of faith and spirituality are important aspects of human experience.  The mystery of our origins, existence and purpose, and the anxieties over our mortality, will always have a powerful effect on our lives and our beliefs.  Even with the move away from structured religion, most people still believe there is something more to life than our material selves.  This sense of spirit or significance informs our passion for human rights and the associated morality and ethics. 

But the march of time has also caused us to question and ultimately reject many of the outmoded doctrines and rules of our ancestors, just as we have adjusted our understanding of science and every other human enterprise.  This, Mr. Barr, is progressive, secular thinking.  It does not wish to prevent you from clinging to your good old religion.  Rather it would ask you to take the best of that religion – for example the great bulk of Jesus’s teachings – and adapt it to the ever-changing world that is a simple fact that every one of us must face.