Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Is the wrong now right ... or at least accepted?

At the end of August, the George Barna organization released the results of a new poll that suggests Americans have adopted a new standard of behavior. Barna asked how many of the poll participants had engaged in at least one of the following behaviors in the previous week: "exposure to pornography, using profanity in public, gambling, gossiping, engaging in sexual intercourse with someone to whom they were not married, retaliating against someone, getting drunk, and lying."

To Barna's dismay, a majority of the 1003 people polled had engaged in at least one of the behaviors. The most common 'naughty' behavior was cussing; the least mentioned was retaliation and having sexual intercourse with someone to whom they were not married. Barna said, "We are witnessing the development and acceptance of a new moral code in America."

That survey and results raised some questions for me.
*** While I would not argue that any of the behaviors are 'good' ones, I wonder how Barna decided to use these as his criteria. They do not match any of the recognizable behavioral lists in the Biblical text, as in the Ten Commandments or the Greatest Commandment. If you were to design this poll, what behaviors would you include to measure the moral behavior of Americans?
*** What defines profanity in our society? When I was growing up, there were certain words one must never say. Most everyone I knew, though, developed 'substitute' words. The intent was the same, but the words were different. So, for example, someone would say, "Sugar" instead of "Sh*t" or "Goldurn" instead of ... well you know. Does using the substitute word constitute profanity? Or, are some words so bad that merely speaking them constitute a 'sin?'
*** Other polls indicate that the vast majority of Americans consider themselves Christian and believe in God. What does a poll like this one from Barna, who is a conservative Christian, say about the depth of belief in America?

I will be curious to see your reactions to this.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You can thank the decline of the mainline churches, and the rise of the secular press and their success in preaching political correctness over the morals and ethics. The more that religion is marginalized, berated and removed from the decisions made everyday in private and public life, the less there will be any sense of right and wrong.