George Washington claimed (PDF) that “religion and morality” are each “indispensable supports” of democracy. John Adams was certain that our Constitution was “made only for a moral and religious people” and is “wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (my emphasis).

According to 65 percent of US adults, these Founding Fathers were wrong.

In a recent Pew Research Center report, two-thirds of American respondents claimed that “it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral.” They can make this claim because our secularized culture has convinced them that morality is personal and subjective. Like the archer who fires an arrow and then paints the target around the place it lands, we get to choose what is moral for us and need no help from God in achieving it.

However, the mass shooting in Texas, the deadliest Russian attack on Ukraine in months, the first US mass evacuation effort from Sudan, and widespread discouragement about the future are windows into how well our subjective morality is working for us. And what do we do when your definition of morality and mine directly contradict each other? When you think abortion on demand is a moral “reproductive right” and I think it is the immoral killing of an unborn child? When you think marriage has no gender and I think it should be reserved for one man and one woman?

This debate is not only foundational to the future of our democracy—it is especially urgent for the souls of evangelicals like me.

My Apple Watch is incompetent

I walked on my treadmill last Friday morning for my usual three miles, setting the pace at 4.2 mph, which equates to 14.17 minutes per mile. My Apple Watch disagreed, however, claiming that I finished my first mile in 13.58. It tracked my second mile at 13.57. I then increased my speed to a 4.3 mph pace, which equates to 13.57 minutes per mile. My Apple Watch, however, reported that I finished that mile in 15.27.

My point is not that my Apple Watch cannot track my walking pace competently, though that is consistently true. My point is that I want to believe that the fastest time is accurate and the slowest time is a technological aberration.

It was the same when I played golf and tennis: I believed that my best shots were “normal” and my other shots were anomalies or bad luck. This is an example of the “slothful induction fallacy,” which occurs when “sufficient logical evidence strongly indicates a particular conclusion is true, but someone fails to acknowledge it, instead attributing the outcome to coincidence or something unrelated entirely.”

My purpose is not to complain about my Apple Watch or to claim unwarranted athletic prowess. Rather, it is to note that what I did on the treadmill, I am constantly tempted to do with my soul. My sins are aberrations, “deviations from the mean” as it were, while my virtuous acts reveal my true character.

If only that were true.

How Satan uses our morality against us

According to Scripture, “secret” sins do not exist: “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14). The psalmist said of God, “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence” (Psalm 90:8).

Dwight Moody was right: Character is what you are in the dark.

This fact is especially relevant for evangelical Christians in the context of sexual morality. Many of us have incurred the wrath of our fallen culture by standing publicly for biblical marriage and sexuality. However, Paul warns us: “In passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things” (Romans 2:1).

For example, when evangelicals condemn homosexual sexual sin but commit heterosexual sexual sin, we sin just like those whose sin we oppose. Our sin may not be as public—a same-sex married couple is obviously living unbiblically, while a heterosexual married couple may or may not be sinning sexually—but it is no less real.

Nonetheless, Satan uses our biblical stance against us by tempting us to believe we are justified in our sins since we condemn the sins of others. He also wants us to think that our sins are less damaging if they are less public. But, as always, Satan is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

Private pornography, for example, is addictive and destroys mental health and dating and marriage relationships. Sex before marriage weakens the marriage; sex outside of marriage can obviously destroy marriage.

Satan also ensures that our “private” sins inevitably become public and then uses them to disparage our Father and our faith. Paul warned his Jewish Christian readers that because of their sins, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2:24). In a recent survey, “the hypocrisy of religious people” was the top reason people of no faith gave for doubting Christian beliefs.

“The utter joy of being forgiven”

Tomorrow we’ll identify three practical ways to respond biblically and redemptively. For today, let’s decide that we want to. Let’s decide that we want to be as holy as God can make us. Then, let’s admit to God our need for his transforming power.

Br. Geoffrey Tristam of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston writes: “Until we acknowledge our need for God, we will never experience the utter joy of being forgiven, healed, restored, and empowered. Once we have experienced that grace, there’s no going back to a life where we trust in our own power and strength. Once we have known God’s hands upholding us and strengthening us, nothing else will do.”

Will you experience the “utter joy” of God’s sanctifying grace today?

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Elon Musk recently tweeted, “Violent crime in SF is horrific.” A responding headline in the Sunday Los Angeles Times caught my eye: “Sorry, San Francisco is not the crime-ridden hellhole the far right claims it is.” The reason, we’re told, is typified by an “iconic transgender cabaret” named AsiaSF.

The writer admits that San Francisco is plagued by what she calls its “tech bust,” “crisis of addiction,” “anti-Asian hate crimes,” and overall lack of safety. However, she cites one of the owners of AsiaSF, who calls San Francisco “a beacon of hope for so many people.” In his view, “No matter who you are, you have to find your truth and live your truth.”

The author responds: “And that is the enduring strength of San Francisco.”

What “very happy” people have in common

Reading the Times article left me with great sadness, not only for so many deceived people in San Francisco but also for the degree to which the writer speaks for millions of others across our nation.

I would think more people would connect the cultural dots: in the years since our society has decided that all truth is “your truth,” the values of patriotism, religion, and community involvement have plummeted. Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who say they are “not too happy” has more than doubled, while the percentage who say they are “very happy” has fallen by more than half to a mere 12 percent, by far the lowest percentage in the five decades the poll has been conducted.

When asked about their values, “very happy” Americans cite belief in marriage and community involvement. And 68 percent of them point to belief in God (contrasted with 42 percent of those who say they are “not happy”).

My first response upon reading the report was to claim vindication for faith in a culture that increasingly views religion as irrelevant, bigoted, and dangerous. But upon reflection, I realized there’s an urgent issue here we need to discuss, a fact about religion that our society completely misunderstands.

Aspirin won’t cure a broken leg

I’m glad “very happy” people consider “belief in God” to be “very important” to them. Here’s the problem: our pluralistic culture thinks all such beliefs are the same, just “different roads up the same mountain.”

But religions are not all the same any more than medicines are all the same. Aspirin for a headache won’t cure a broken leg. When Islam’s holy book rejects the Trinity (Quran 4:171) while the Bible consistently teaches this doctrine (cf. Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14), they are clearly not teaching the same truth.

Furthermore, belief in God by itself will not change us or our broken world: “Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (James 2:19). In recent years, religion has brought us horrific clergy abuse scandals. Denominational internecine fights have dominated headlines with conflicts over partisan politics, theological controversies, and church property. Evangelicals are stigmatized as homophobic and Trumpist; mainstream denominations are labeled wokeist and liberal.

Clearly, belief in God is not enough. The Greco-Roman world was highly religious, as Paul noted (Acts 17:22). But they treated women as possessions, threw unwanted babies out with the trash, and engaged in sexual activities too horrific for me to describe here.

“By my God I can leap over a wall”

By contrast, Psalm 18 models transforming faith in the one true God. Here David proclaims: “The Lᴏʀᴅ is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (v. 2). Note the eight times he calls God not “the” God or even “our” God but “my” God.

Consequently, he can pray, “It is you who light my lamp; the Lᴏʀᴅ my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall” (vv. 28–29). He therefore asks, “Who is God, but the Lᴏʀᴅ? And who is a rock, except our God?” (v. 31).

Now you and I have a choice to make. We can believe in a generic God and think that because we are religious, we have all of God we need. Or we can follow David’s example by making God our “rock” in every moment of every day as we “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

How do we do this without being monks in a monastery?

Moving to a “God-centered dialogue”

I found help and hope in a reflection by Henri Nouwen that begins in a surprising way: “To pray, I think, does not primarily mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people.” This is precisely what many of us think praying does mean.

But Nouwen notes, “As soon as we begin to divide our thoughts into thoughts about God and thoughts about people and events, we remove God from our daily life and put him in a pious little niche where we can think pious thoughts and experience pious feelings.”

Nouwen offers us a better way: “Although it is important and even indispensable for the spiritual life to set apart time for God and God alone, prayer can eventually become unceasing prayer when all our thoughts beautiful and ugly, high and low, prideful and shameful, sorrowful and joyful can be thought in the presence of God.”

As a result, “We convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer when we move from a self-centered monologue to a God-centered dialogue. This requires that we turn all our thoughts into conversation. The main question, therefore, is not so much what we think, but to whom we present our thoughts.”

Will you live in a monologue with yourself or a dialogue with God today?

Denison Forum