“But morality is inescapable. Let’s say we agree that Jesus is all about relationships. Great. Then what? Every relationship has actions the parties would deem in and out of bounds, actions that help or hinder the union. Jesus may be more patient than most, but even he promises to eventually call foul on some things.”

The state of morality in America has, by the numbers, changed very little over the last decade. Most view it as declining, and a majority already considers it pretty lousy.

However steady our grim appraisals, the morals themselves are clearly in flux. Polls from Barna and Pew both shed light on what might be deemed as slipping standards. And sociologist Alan Wolfe has identified and documented the shift away from generally received, traditional morality to personally determined codes of conduct that bend with time and whim.

What’s morality good for?

Christians are not immune from the drift. In fact, there’s a strain of contemporary Christianity that views morality as irrelevant, or at least mostly so. Evangelical social critic Ron Sider highlighted the problem a decade ago, but the view goes back much further. What looks like a pronounced shift is due mainly to the ease with which moral disregard and disintegration thrives in today’s self-indulgent culture.

By this way of thinking, morality might be a helpful addition to Christian life, but just as often it’s a source of pointless rules and pain and has nothing fundamentally to do with life in Christ. Efforts to be holy are suspect if not utterly specious—especially if they’re prescribed by someone like a pastor or priest. Religion, we’re told, is all about rules. Whereas Jesus is interested in a personal relationship.

But morality is inescapable. Let’s say we agree that Jesus is all about relationships. Great. Then what? Every relationship has actions the parties would deem in and out of bounds, actions that help or hinder the union. Jesus may be more patient than most, but even he promises to eventually call foul on some things, regardless of what we personally think of them. That’s what the parable of the sheep and goats is all about.

The issue then lies in how we understand what morality is and is for.

Into this turbulent stream steps Andrew Stephen Damick. The priest at St. Paul Orthodox Church in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, Damick is also a podcaster, blogger, and author. The final chapter of his most recent book, An Introduction to God, deals with morality and why it matters.

Central to the whole project

Damick grounds the topic in two core Christian teachings: (1) God is Trinity, and (2) Christ became human. How do these two dogmas relate to morality? We find the link in another essential Christian teaching—that we are made according to the image of God. Says Damick,

Because God Himself is a communion of Persons, and because we are made according to His image, we too were made to live in communion, both with God and with each other. Because Christ is the incarnate God-man, truly human in every way, our participation in Him (which is what salvation actually is) will also involve every aspect of what it means to be human. . . .

Christ represents the perfect union of God and man by who he is, while we can participate in that same union by becoming more like Him, by communing with Him. Since we have free will, we can choose to walk a path different from the one leading to the destiny our Creator designed for us. But if we choose to walk that path of destiny and stay on it, then we will become truly human.

This path is not one we make ourselves, cutting a course through life’s terrain that suits our tastes and sensibilities. It has been revealed by God in the church and its scriptures. Our love for God is manifest in keeping these revealed commandments (John 14.15), and by our obedience Christ himself becomes present to us (John 14.21).

Read More