Dr. Albert Mohler takes a look at President Obama’s declaration of June as gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual month. Along the way Dr. Mohler states his background assumption with regard to moral decision making by most people in this country:
Most Americans come to moral judgments by a complex and often confused process that combines moral intuition with emotivism and some (often quite minimal) knowledge of the history of moral judgment. Add to this the fact that most Americans are highly influenced by popular culture and mass opinion. In the end, as many observers have argued, most Americans are probably moral pragmatists at heart.
On an issue as controversial as homosexuality, moral confusion abounds. Americans respond to questions related to homosexuality with a range of often inconsistent and contradictory moral judgments. Ask a question about same-sex marriage one way and you get one answer. Change the question slightly, and you might get a very different response from the very same person.
moral pragmatists is exactly the right term to cover morality today in this country.
oh yes, and one other word from Dr. Mohler’s essay, just to remind us how things get heard:
Morally serious persons must take the President’s proclamation as a morally serious act. As such, it demands a response. Evangelical Christians dare not respond with a claim of moral superiority as if we are not ourselves sinners. But we must be clear that we cannot find pride in sin, whether these are our own sins or those of others. The Gospel of Christ simply does not allow us to see sin — any sin — as a matter of pride.
emphasis added.
when this issue comes up, we have to put it in the context of our own and universal sinfulness. We are all bent. We are all sinners. No sin is worse than any other. All of us have to rely on God’s grace for reconciliation with Him. None of us have any priority or preference over anyone else.