Multiple Choice Moralities

By Albert Mohler

Our vocabulary betrays us. Instead of saying "I made a mistake," politicians say "mistakes were made." Similarly, some now want to speak of moral "values," but not of morals.

The contemporary talk of "values" is what is left when society accepts the notion that there is no genuine right or wrong. Moral issues are reduced to matters of personal preference and conviction. My "values" may not match your "values," but we all must respect each other's convictions equally in matters of common concern.

The reduction of morality to values was a hallmark of the 1980s, when progressive educators pushed this agenda in the public schools. That generation of young people is now well into adulthood, and we can see the moral damage inflicted by those who instructed students to look only within themselves for a system of values, and to doubt or defy traditional morality.

A generation raised in the incubator of moral relativism is groping for enduring truth in the moral wilderness.