At every stage in the moral consensus shift, the media
are manipulated or coopted
so that they do not assume their investigative role.

Preaching morality to an antinomian culture

By W. Patrick Cunningham

    In September of 1996 the news division of a major television network ran a story that caught my attention. My well-loved brother-in-law, Gary, had Downs’ Syndrome, and so any anecdote involving disabled children interests our family. A twenty-year-old Colorado lad with Downs’, who had been mainstreamed into his local high school and was then a senior, was ruled ineligible to play football because his age exceeded the nineteen-year limit. The authorities were quoted very briefly. The gist of their argument was “rules are rules.” Multiple observers lamented the inhumanity of the system. The last word, however, was the young man’s: “I hate this,” he said. “I hate rules.”

    This incident should be noteworthy to the preacher who wants to share with his congregation from time to time the essential and eternal moral rules. These ordinances were laid down by God, and affirmed by Jesus, who came to fulfill the Law, not destroy it (Matt. 5:17). Any number of endings could have been chosen for this short story. The reporter chose to use it to discredit, not just a silly sports eligibility rule, but all rules. He obviously had an agenda to fulfill, and used the wronged young retarded man to accomplish it. We whose calling is communication of the Good News of Christ have to be aware of stories like this one, because they have been forming the environment we teach or preach in. Law and rules are not in fashion today. We live in a culture that can be called antinomian (literally, opposed to law). To stand up for rules of right conduct in such a time takes special skills. If we don’t learn them, we will lose the fight for the moral center of our people.

    Antinomians believe that they should be allowed to live without the imposition of an external law on their behavior. Of course, this position is internally contradictory, because they propose this principle as a new universal law. Furthermore, there are two peculiarities about antinomians: First, they are almost exclusively concerned about voiding laws involving their sexual conduct, and its consequences. Second, they would install a new set of laws on behavior in their place. What they propose is not anarchy, but a revolution in favor of new moral regimes. Furthermore, these revolutionaries have already won the war in much of North America.

    Before we consider how preaching can reverse the decline in American morals, we must understand how the decline happened. Moral fashions, unlike moral rules, are subject to change. An excellent example from the past—not a matter of life and death—is in the area of women’s fashions. In the lax age prior to the French Revolution, especially among the elite, the fashionable woman wore extremely low-cut gowns. Later, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, fashionable trend-setters wore high-collar dresses. These trends, like fashions of all kinds, were set by those to whom the elite look up. These “upper-crust” people then adopted the dress or behavior of their leaders, and the rest of the middle class followed suit.

    A more serious example can be taken from the last three decades, surely the most morally depraved period of the century in North America. While Catholics endlessly debated contraception in the sixties, an attractive woman named Sherry Finkbine seized national attention and headlines. She had, she said, taken the drug Thalidomide (a sleep aid that caused the shortening of baby’s limbs) during the early part of her pregnancy, and sought permission for an abortion. Of course, at that time in New England there were several sources for illegal and “safe” abortions, under the medical counter, but the Finkbine case was brought into the public forum in order to change popular opinion about abortion. Ultimately, she flew to Europe to secure the elimination of her baby, whose birth defects, if any, would have still permitted a fairly normal life.

    Later, many celebrities revealed their abortions in carefully organized revelations. Each “choice” was made to seem inevitable, and even claimed to be “the best thing for everyone” (even the baby). Thus, for example, tennis star Billie Jean King told the world about the abortion she had to further her career. If she hadn’t killed the child, “it” would have been neglected. Generally, a highly visible star in sports or entertainment, whose economic success was already assured, was chosen or self-selected to testify about the deed, and the “liberating” effect it had on her life.

    No one testimonial to evil is adequate to change the overall public perception, but each story of a “justified” evil, if presented sympathetically in the media, favorably impresses a significant number of readers or listeners. Year by year the public consensus shifts, until (as in 1973) some legislative or judicial act overturns traditional morality, and that action causes, instead of a revolt, a further shift toward public support of immoral conduct. Typically, the individual begins to echo the words of the politician: “I am personally opposed to X, but I respect the freedom/rights/opinion of those who disagree.” To support that statement, the ancient (and logically absurd) slogan “You can’t legislate morality” is dragged out and dressed up in new garb. Thus, in 1963, the vast majority of Americans rejected abortion as a means of birth control. Twenty years later, the vast majority accepted abortion as good or acceptable in at least some instances.

    The final step in the moral shift occurs when the evil action is so rationalized, so entrenched in a culture that public policy is manipulated to make it a protected activity. In 1953, when a conscientious citizen smoked out an abortionist, the corrupt doctor was sent to prison and the citizen celebrated. Forty years later, the equally corrupt, but legitimated doctor is sent Medicaid payments and made a hero by his supporters, and the protesters outside his clinic are brutalized and incarcerated. On a more trivial plane, lottery (“numbers”) gambling was illegal up until about twenty years ago. Now nearly every state has legalized it, as long as the game is played so that the state gets its share.

    At every stage in the moral consensus shift, the media are manipulated or coopted so that they do not assume their investigative role. With few exceptions, they parrot the line of moral fashion, and suppress any curiosity about the truth. Unfortunately, with abortion, the principal result of this malfeasance is more dead children and uncounted ruined women’s lives. We hear nothing, for instance, of the sorry effects of multiple abortions on movie stars like Marilyn Monroe, whose 1963 “probable” suicide should have been a moral warning to the culture. The media completely ignore the phenomenon of post-abortion syndrome, and the physical and psychological problems that result in women who have had just one abortion. It doesn’t even ask the question of how the abortion affects the rest of the family.

    The pastoral leader, of course, cannot afford to take this attitude. The media can focus on high-profile “hard cases” and tug the heartstrings of their readers to allow evil in “this one exception.” The pastor must sensitively deal with the sufferings of massive numbers of his flock who suffer physical, psychological and spiritual damage five, ten or twenty years later. From Guttmacher statistics we can estimate that upwards of 25% of women under the age of 55 in any average Catholic congregation have had elective abortions. Furthermore, because oral contraceptives often work by preventing implantation, or by causing “mini-abortions,” and because over 75% of Catholic couples in their reproductive years use artificial contraception or sterilization, the real target audience in any parish may approach half the congregation. Some of these parishioners are trying to do right, and confess abortions or contraception. Many, many of them are not, and have desensitized their consciences to the immorality of their actions as a way of getting some sleep.

    Because of these two very different situations, the pastor should structure moral preaching to be beneficial to both. One valuable lesson can be learned from past practice: however we approach the sin, we must be compassionate to the sinner. The primary form of compassion is not justifying the evil, but forgiving the sin. Whenever a sermon identifies sin, guilt and punishment, it should immediately offer the forgiveness of Christ in sacramental confession. Ideally, the Sacrament of Reconciliation should be available right after the sermon.

    In moral suasion, positive examples are the best weapon. It is likely that every priest has heard at least one story that can be altered slightly and made anonymous. The stories, each with different nuances, are cut from the same pattern: for X reason, whether it be the pressure of finances or of an angry boyfriend or of uncaring parents, a young woman had her baby aborted. But she didn’t rationalize the act, or destroy herself in despair. She came to the Church, her Mother, and admitted her sin. She was forgiven, and after perhaps extended counseling she is healed, and perhaps spends time working with Birthright, or Right to Life, or a shelter. These stories need to be told, and women who have undergone abortion need to take confidence from them. There is forgiveness and healing on the other side of the guilt and pain.

    God gives us Law, not because he is harsh and critical, but because he is merciful. After the fall, the energy of man is always dissipated on self-delusion and the vain pursuit of pleasure without it. Man is like a great river of energy and life. There are two great rivers in the U.S. The Mississippi-Missouri flows through a huge flat plain. When it floods, it overflows its banks and causes vast destruction. Ultimately, it drains listlessly into the Gulf through countless outlets, doing no work itself, “just rolling along.” So is man without law and internal discipline. The Columbia, by contrast, is channeled through a long network of canyons it has dug by itself. Like the moral law, these high walls give it direction and provide sites for dams that harness its enormous energy. The moral law, by sealing off useless and self-destructive avenues to man’s creative energy, channels his power into creative and constructive work.

    The fact that human beings need Law in order to live is proved by the very culture that has attempted to destroy the moral law. In its place, Western society has erected an entirely new, “politically correct” moral code, weakly based on natural law in that it attempts to mitigate man’s effects on nature. In its end-game manifestations we find organizations such as PETA, which claim that animals have equal “rights” with humans.

    It is entertaining to teach a section of ethics to contemporary college students. Invariably, when I ask “how many of you believe that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on the circumstances?” most students raise their hands. But the hands go down when I ask the follow-up: “OK, when is racial discrimination justified? How about rape? Would anyone care to tell me under what circumstances it’s OK to pollute the environment?” As in teaching, this technique is useful in preaching about the universal quality and unchanging nature of the natural law.

    What do we do about the poorly formed conscience? Many Catholics have for one reason or another formed their consciences, especially on sexual matters, with not even a nod to Catholic teaching. One way we can help these self-deluded souls is to preach the truth, and then invite those who have a contrary opinion to come by the rectory, or send a note, to tell the preacher why he’s wrong. Another way to aid them in seeing the wrongness of their moral sense is to feature a repentant person, if a good speaker, to tell of his experience in reforming his conscience. This is especially helpful if the speaker is a public personality. Patricia Neal has done an invaluable service by telling her story, which includes an abortion she has repented from. Again, in every case the preacher must stress the availability of repentance and forgiveness and healing.

    As always, Jesus has led the way for the preacher in ministering to a congregation full of hurt and sin. The story is so familiar that we are tempted to bypass it, but it contains an important new lesson in this regard:

    But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” . . . . Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, (and) from now on do not sin any more” (John 8:3-11).

    Jesus does not downplay the seriousness of the woman’s sin, but to effect a change in the woman he first dismisses the accusers who would exact punishment, instead of inviting repentance and granting effective forgiveness. Then, outside the presence of eyewitnesses, he forgives her and confirms in her a determination to avoid sin in the future. The apostles, particularly John, must have learned of the outcome of this encounter either from Jesus’ lips or (more likely) from the woman herself. This meeting gives us in seminal form the essential elements of individual confession, which is before anything else a one-on-one encounter with the reality of sin and the overpowering, forgiving love of Christ. This love can have its effect first through the priest as preacher, next through his action as confessor, and finally through full communion with the Church in the Eucharist. In a day of moral anarchy and revolt, it may be the greatest service a pastor can perform for the world.

Mr. W. Patrick Cunningham received his B.A. and M.A. in theology from St. Mary’s University in Texas. He also earned an M.A. in education from Stanford University. He has taught business ethics at Incarnate Word College and is now on the adjunct faculty of the University of Texas at San Antonio. His last article in HPR appeared in January 1997.

Back to June HPR Table of Contents