Moral Living in an Immoral World

The editors of Panis Circenses would like to welcome our friend and frequent collaborator Patrick O’Riley to the blogosphere. We are humbled by his assent to our request of publishing the following piece. We thank him whole heartedly and further request of him to keep up the good work.


The recent announcement that the evangelical world is concluding its largely disregarded and overlooked boycott against Disney set me to thinking about moral living in an immoral world. There is much talk in evangelical circles, especially among those leaders who have made it their business to serve as putative representatives of Christianity and Christian believers to the political powers that be, about “standing up for”—sometimes “fighting for”—morality, by which these leaders mean using legal, political, or economic weapons to coerce others into moral behavior. This activity is justified in the name of working to restore the United States to its erstwhile status as a “Christian nation,” and “being salt and light,” (a phrase that in current evangelical discussions somehow always has political implications, whatever Jesus of Nazareth meant it to say).

Growing up as I did in a politically and religiously conservative evangelical home, church, and school, I was an early supporter of the boycott against Disney. I believed in the fight to restore “Judeo-Christian” or “traditional family values” to the culture, and saw Disney as a prime hindrance to this project, an exponent of all the irreligious, non-traditional, anti-family values that had to be stopped. My family refused to shop at the Disney store and did not buy any movies or other products that bore the Disney label, a position several members of my family have held religiously since the boycott began.

I don’t remember ever consciously ending my own adherence to the boycott, but I believe the time I simply stopped thinking about it was when I came across a list of everything Disney owns. This list includes the ABC and A & E television networks, Miramax Films, Touchstone Pictures, Buena Vista Home Video, and so many others. It was a daunting list, and much of it new information; I realized to my chagrin that I had been violating the boycott for years out of sheer ignorance. It was around this time that I also began to realize that my family was almost alone among all the evangelicals I knew who were even trying to support the boycott. Much of the Christian world never even got on board, and many others jumped ship early on in the venture. The result of these discoveries, of course, was the dawning realization that the boycott simply was not working, and, it would seem, could not or would not work. So much for standing up for morality, at least by that method.

Looking back on this, I wonder if we evangelicals, for all our moral zeal, simply haven’t come to terms with what our political struggles are all about. It seems that somehow, we naïvely failed to remember that politics, like most things in life, is always about compromise—finding the least evil solution that appeases the largest number of people. The political arena is a poor forum for moralizing about an absolute standard. So perhaps the goals of conservative evangelical politics, which is currently the primary arena of our moralizing, simply are not attainable, and the sort of Christianesque utopia we have vaguely in mind when we enter the political fray never was a viable entity. This presumes, of course, that we actually know what our long-term goals are, that we have fully-orbed political and social philosophies and fully developed images of the ideal state. We do have many short term goals, to be sure; everyone knows that evangelicals want to ban gay marriage, outlaw abortion, and so forth. But were we suddenly able to remake American society to our own ends, completely without interference from any other groups or persons, I submit that we would have very little clue as to what we want, as the very nebulousness of the philosophically meaningless, even incoherent, term “Judeo-Christian values” suggests.

Moreover, I am doubtful that most evangelicals have given careful consideration to the kind of world we live in. Certainly, evangelicals properly hold to the sinfulness of humanity and the sin nature of human beings; many if not most evangelicals even believe in such doctrines as original sin and total depravity. But when it comes to engaging the culture, we make the fantastic assumption that we are to delve into a fight for moral values, as if the totally depraved human beings around us—from whose ranks we all came, lest we forget—were at all interested in moral values in any meaningful sense of the term. Much more dangerously, we assume that we have achieved the summit of the moral high ground ourselves.

Now, I am not at all suggesting that evangelicals know nothing about morality. Certainly, our attempts to live out the principles of Scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in the community of the Church are significant moves toward the kind of holy life God would have for us. And the project of seeking personal holiness should never be abandoned; always we should strive to be more like Christ, to think and act and live more Scripturally. But let us not forget the state of the world we live in. It is a lost and depraved world as we evangelicals are fond of saying. And all its members are tainted by that depravity—even us. We cannot live in the world and avoid it.

Every day, I have come to realize, I make tacit allowances for living in a sinful world, just by going about my everyday activities. Indeed, in many ways, I even support values I abhor. My tax dollars go to pay for lots of things I think are immoral, including war and capital punishment, birth control programs in AIDS ravished countries, foreign aid for oppressive dictatorships—the list is long. I watch movies and television programs laced with profanity, sexual references, and violence (find some entertainment that does not have these things to one degree or another—it’s harder than you think, especially if you use an absolute standard). I invest money in mutual funds that buy stocks for hundreds of companies—and very likely at least some of those companies are engaging in activities I would consider immoral. I eat meat from animals bred and raised in appalling conditions, packed so tightly into confined spaces they can barely move, and force-fed hormone treatments. I drive my car doing useless errands, or sometimes just for pleasure, pumping a slew of pollutants into the air with every bit of pressure on the gas pedal. I use thousands of pieces of paper each year, only a small fraction of which ever gets recycled. I buy clothes that were very likely made in sweatshops—I have never taken the time or trouble to find out for sure. I drink coffee that was harvested by slaves—men and women disadvantaged by oppressive economic systems that chain them every bit as much as did the bondage of the human trafficking of previous centuries. I eat fine meals in fine restaurants despite the millions of people around the world and even in the United States who are starving, some of them to death. I spend discretionary money on movies and operas and trinkets and toys even though there are people in Africa who eke out a living on $2 a day. And yes, I consume products made by some of the many subsidiary companies of Disney, despite their open support of homosexual politics and various other unsavory things.

Just by living in the world, I violate, consciously or unconsciously, my own moral principles every day. In some of these cases, I am directly responsible; I commit immoral actions in my own personal sphere of influence. But in many other cases, I am not directly responsible; I don’t get to decide how my taxes are spent, I don’t personally raise animals, I did not take money or food directly out of the hands of the starving, I did not ask Disney to support homosexuality. And yet, I bear the stigma of involvement with immorality—I am part of the massive web of causality by which these immoral activities take place.

This is a primary reason I am cautious whenever we evangelical Christians wade into political or social matters, which is what we were trying to do with the Disney boycott. When it comes to living our values, especially in the political and social spheres, I’m not sure we are much more moral than our non-evangelical neighbors who are just trying to get by in this broken world. I could criticize Disney for its corporate stance on homosexuality, but someone could just as well criticize me for not giving more money to the poor. Both of these moral articles have clear attestation in the Scriptures, but of course, only I, and not Disney, claim that it is the Scriptures by which one ought to live.

It would be far better for us if we were to read all of those Scriptures more honestly, with a good deal more humility, especially those parts that tell us about ourselves: that we are sinful, depraved people, that we live in a fallen world, ravished and broken by sin, and that even those of us who have been crucified with Christ often don’t get it right. God alone is holy, and He alone can rescue us from who we are and the world we are part of and make us like Himself.

We should spend more time talking about that. I don’t think Scripture ever commands us to “stand up for morality” outside the believing community, but Scripture clearly commands us to bear witness for Christ to the world, and it is crucial to note that those two activities are not the same thing. Certainly we should ourselves strive to be ever more moral (I prefer the term “Christ-like”), but calling attention to our moral standards and demanding or even legislating conformity to them is an entirely different matter. The fallen world will do exactly as our theology should teach us to expect a fallen world to do. And sometimes, just because we live here and not in heaven, we will find that we too have been carried along by the world’s fallenness, perhaps have contributed to it ourselves. While this should never paralyze our attempts to grow in holiness, it should engender in us a profound sense of humility whenever we talk about morality, especially with those who are not empowered by the Holy Spirit, as we are.

Recognizing this, we come to understand that trading the Great Commission for promotion of merely “Judeo-Christian values” is a backwards step. Our task is not to make the world a little more moral and a little less fallen. Our task is not to force fallen men and women to act as if they were not so—especially since we are not so good at morality either. Our task is to keep pointing with a deep sense of grace and humility to the Christ who raises fallen men back to life. This is the only purely holy task there is on earth, and it will do what all the moralizing and boycotting and politicking can never do. Jesus saves—Jesus alone.



Patrick O’Riley holds a Bachelor’s degree in political science and is a graduate of the Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C. In his home state he was named as a delegate to the 2000 Republican convention and was a founding member of the local chapter of the Family Policy Center affiliated with Gary Bauer. He has been involved at the grassroots level with three presidential campaigns. He walked away from political and legal work to enter the ministry in 2002.

The Ordination of Women

Back by popular demand ... my Systematic Theology paper on the Ordination of Women.

A Parable

Once upon a time there was a professional football team that was the most winning team in their league. They consistently won their games and made it to the playoffs and even won the Super Bowl with clockwork regularity. Throughout the league this team was known to have the best coaches and best players now playing the game. It seemed that this team could do no wrong and would continue to win games far into the future.

Now the owners of this football team were very passionate about the game of football and very earnestly wanted their team to win games and do well. However, the owners, though being passionate, had only a fundamental knowledge of the game and were somewhat irked and confused about how the team's coaches and players played the game of football. The teams' training practices and even the games themselves were full of razzle-dazzle plays and apparently unorthodox strategies that confounded their opponents as well as the owners. Because the owners only had a fundamental knowledge of the game they were a little distressed by such plays, but, as long as the team won football games, they did not see it necessary to change how their coaches and the players played the game.

But one day a group of outside assistant coaches began coming to the owners complaining to them about the unorthodox plays that were being conducted by the coaches and players. They complained that such plays were an affront to the game of football and would soon lead to the demise of the team. They complained that such plays, if they continued, would spell doom for the most winning team in the league and that the current coaches and players, regardless of their past successes, would surely be soon losing their games. "We need to get back to the fundamentals of the game", they said. "Only then will we be assured of continuing our winning streak." In short, these outside assistant coaches played on the fears and ignorance of the owners and offered themselves up as the answer to the problem they had convinced the owners was soon to come.

Now the owners of this football team were very passionate about the game of football and very earnestly wanted their team to win games and do well. So, on the advice of the outside assistant coaches, the owners fired the head coach and his coaching staff and hired the outside assistant coaches as their new coaching staff. Soon the new head coaches began to make significant changes to the team, including firing most of the players that had once won so many games and altering the plays that had once won so many football games.

Soon the new coaches were advertising their new coaching staff and new players on every available media outlet and promoting their new and improved team with their great game strategy as the next great thing in football. The coaches and players appeared on sports shows and commercials and even appeared on the boxes of cereal. In time, the new and improved team began attracting more and more fans to the games and more and more money poured into owners' pockets and into the team. However, despite the new and improved team with its coaches and players who were dedicated to the fundamentals of the sport, the team could not win their games.

Now the owners of this football team were very passionate about the game of football and very earnestly wanted their team to win games and do well. So they called their new coaches up and asked them to explain why the team was not winning as many games as the new coaches had promised or as many games as the old coaches had delivered.

"Well," said the new coaches, "we're taking in more revenue than ever, we have more fans than ever before ..."

"Yes," replied the owners, "but we're not winning football games and that's the whole point of having a football team in the first place. How do you explain this?"

"Well, a few of those assistant coaches that you fired, they are now teaching high school football and they're not winning as many games as we are so things would have been much worse if we had not become the coaches."

"That's not an explanation that is an excuse," the owners replied.

The coaches took in a deep breath and said, "Well, our team has the best coaches and the best players in the league - all chosen by us - and our team has the best football strategy - all okayed by us - so the only possible explanation for why our team is not winning football games is that the owners are not very passionate about the game of football."

Another Question

On Monday, Memorial Day, I posted the story about my visit to a small local church where I was surprised to see a Texas A&M flag in the sanctuary on one of the walls.

While admitting that I had reasons to believe that such a display was inappropriate, I requested that other individuals respond with their reasons why such a display is wrong. Here are the two responses that were given:

“I thought we were there to worship God, not Texas A&M.”

“I think such a display is a distraction from where one's focus and devotion should be directed within a house of worship.”

Both of these responses, I believe, are right on the money. However, I would now like to add to my own reasons to what these responses have said.

As both of these responses indicated, a church worship service is directed towards God and nothing else. A worship service is a body of believers communing together for the purpose of worshipping together in a corporate manner. What we worship is God and not a college or a particular team.

Now the church and its faith are not of this world and a worship service is where believers go to corporately commune with that other world. Teams and other factions ARE of this world. They are very much of this world and, while they may not be of any inherent evil in themselves, teams and factions are by their very nature divisive. Because they are worldly and divisive they need to be kept outside the church where division is not allowed. A person entering a church who favors a team other than Texas A&M or may have some ill will towards such a faction should not feel isolated from the body because of such a display or, even worse, begin to associate a college, a team, or a faction with the church. Again, the church and its believers are not of this world and should not associate themselves with such worldly institutions. The church cuts across such boundaries and transcends them.

Okay, does anyone have a problem with my reasons or the logic being applied?

If not, then let it now be said that, in fact, I did not see a Texas A&M flag at the local church that I visited; I saw an American flag.

Now, do not the reasons and logic applied above to the Texas A&M flag equally apply to the American flag?

Your response.