A large motivational force behind the MAGA movement is the hysteria over the decline of so-called Christian values and morality. Well intentioned people see the changes in sexual mores, the ubiquity of Internet pornography, the increase in single parent and non-traditional families, the acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage, abortions and drug use as signs of a catastrophic decay of societal morality.
They attribute this ‘decay’ to the decline in Christian affiliation and church attendance, and more generally, to left wing or liberal ideologies. The historical association of communism with atheism is conflated with any left-leaning political inclination. The fact that many mainline Christian denominations have embraced more liberal policies in the past is dismissed as corruption or naïveté.
The so-called ills that frighten the MAGA cult are complex societal or personal topics. Sexuality, and all of its associated issues (sexual preference, pre-marital sex, abortion, pornography) have challenged societies for millennia. There is no single set of moral codes that can resolve them.
And if we are honest with ourselves, then we must confess that these primarily affect the individual, whether for good or for bad, and it is therefore up to each individual to decide what path to take as long as it does not directly harm others.
There are indeed moral failings in our society, but they have nothing to do with sexuality or substance addiction.
It is a moral failing that we have so much wealth in our society yet there is no universal medical coverage.
It is a moral failing that much of the world still languishes in desperate poverty and falls prey to famine and disease when other parts of the world have an embarrassment of riches.
It is a moral failing that we spend so much of our resources on weapons.
It is a moral failing that we continue to pollute the air and water, accelerate global warming with no effort to reduce it, and produce ever more plastic and other long-term contaminants.
It is a moral failing that we are more interested in throttling or preventing the immigration of desperate world citizens than in helping to solve the problems that cause this migration.
The fact that Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism have much more to say about these moral failings than the ones the MAGA world decries is apparently lost on these hyper religious doomsayers. If there is to be a true ‘turning point’, then it would be the loving unification of the religious faithful with their humanist brethren to address the real moral failings and work toward a more moral world together.
