The State of Morality

As a Christian, it's hard for me to take a step without inserting my beliefs into the scenario. Sure, I apply my faith to deep issues: Ethics, salvation, destiny, philosophy and the like. 

But sometimes, I apply it to simple things. 

Although few people would pair the words "simple" and "morality" in the same sentence, I'm going to dare to do so today. 

Morality is simple, if you believe in truth. 

Like I said, I'm a Christian, and I have faith in the ultimate truth found in the God of the Bible. Therefore, I'm going to use the Bible to explain my claim for morality because, well, it's truth. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul the Apostle poses a question and a sort of challenge: 

"You were running well: who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion did not come from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. I have confidence in you in the Lord that will adopt no other view; but the one who is disturbing you will bear his judgment, whoever he is." Galatians 5:7-10 (NASB)

Now, if I were to present this as a Bible study or a sermon, I dissect it word by word. But, since I don't want to bore you, I'm going to use it as evidence for my initial claim. 

Paul flat out says that the Galatians were "hindered from obeying the truth." He doesn't try to qualify the fact that they had fallen away. He doesn't make an excuse for them. He's basically fed up, and he's going to bring the proverbial smack down:

"This persuasion did not come from Him who calls you (emphasis added)." Now, because Paul clearly says in his first statement that the Galatians have stopped "obeying the truth," wouldn't he, by saying that it wasn't "Him who called you" (i.e. God), be making a claim for the truth that is found in God? 

Then Paul brings the heat, so to speak. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough," he says. In case you didn't understand, Paul is not using this statement to in a positive manner. He's basically saying, "someone, I'm not sure who, but someone, came in here and messed ALL of you guys up."  

Paul continues, saying, "I have confidence in you in the Lord  that you will adopt no other view." Now, Paul was not just any old authority figure. He was inspired by God. He was a prophet. That means God was speaking through Paul ("in the Lord"), commanding the Galatians to turn back to obedience and, subsequently, truth. 

It's not difficult to apply this to modern society. Most of the issues that take place in the world happen because one person makes a poor decision. Madoff. Ahmadinejad. Kim Jong-Il. Mark Sanford. Even people like George W. Bush. The list goes on. The scandals accumulate. One person's mistakes leads to the demise of  a family. Next comes a staff. Then an administration. Even a country. 

We find people looking to their authority figures for truth. Then those authority figures define a society's morality. It's a chain reaction. It's exactly what Paul refers to in the passage in Galatians.

We mustn't look far to find the root of our demise, because most of the time it's authority figures. Why, then, do we continue to seek refuge in the authority of a worldly truth? Why do we so easily forget our own mistakes, thinking they could never happen with our authority figures? 

Morality is simple, if you believe in truth. We must not look for it in humanity and its flawed nature. It can't be found in knowledge.  Book books will not come with us when we die. Our days of education will pass. We will grow old. And we'll have the opinions of our peers and the academy as a source of hope. 

May it never be so. May truth be found where it is claimed. May we seek refuge in consistency that can only be found in the Ultimate Truth. 

A Critique of the Mass Media

Sunday for me is typically a day of joy. It's the Lord's day. It's a day that's usually characterized by  friends, family, church and rest. And while all of these characteristics were present today, they were also rudely interrupted by a simple conversation I had with my grandma and sister. It was over the state of the media in this country. 

I don't want to talk about what everyone else already knows. The mass media in this country has a corrupt reputation. It elicits millions of rolled eyes worldwide. Although I'm a proponent of print journalism, I must admit I've torn apart a newspaper or two in my day. Bottom line: the media in this country isn't in a good place. 

As a college student studying journalism, I'm constantly confronted with critics. They ask passive aggressive, leading questions regarding "the problem of the media" and "the death of newspapers." And I'm starting to notice the source of the criticism. 

You see, media in the United States are at a turning point. Broadcast journalism is more like narrowcast journalism. Print journalism has begun to lose its true image, as subjectivity and objectivity seem complementary. The industry failing as such an alarming rate, that if newspapers weren't littered with advertisements, they would cease to exist.  

My favorite local newspaper, the Seattle Times, used to be paired with the now-defunct Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Sundays (R.I.P, P.I.). Now, the Sunday Times uses an every-other-page-advertisement model. For instance, today two-thirds of the front page was news stories, one-third was "teasers," or sneak peaks for the stories inside. The section's last page, however, was plastered with a full-page Macy's ad. Sadly, this "over advertisement" is common to most major national newspapers. 

But let me get back to the conversation I had with my sister and grandma. I don't want to rant too much about the debacle that our media has become. 

Somehow, the three of us sparked up a conversation on the recent death of pop star Michael Jackson (I have no idea how it happened, it really hasn't received that must publicity). Removing the deeply sad story behind Jackson's life and the people he affected in his 50 years on earth, we shifted the focus and applied the event to the state of American media. 

Most Americans get their news from the major news outlets, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and the like. But has anyone else noticed that all of these channels have been dominated by developments in Jackson's death? If it's not a tribute to his life, it's news about his autopsy. If not the autopsy, it's Larry King interviewing a celebrity asking, "how long did you know Michael?" and, "share your greatest memory of Michael." 

I'm sorry, but isn't CNN supposed to be an international news outlet? Shouldn't it be reporting on developments on the election in Iran? What about the recent election in Thailand? And what about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Even here in the U.S., what about healthcare reform? Even as I flip through the channels now, there's an old interview with Michael on MSNBC. Now there's a commercial for OK! a celebrity gossip tabloid.

In our conversation, my grandma, sister and I came to the conclusion that the media report on what is most important in American society. That means this society places "The King of Pop" above "The War in Iraq" on its list of priorities. If that doesn't make you sad, it should.