These pieces always remind me that the new moralism is strongly religious. Not too long ago I heard a lot of complaining about the doctrine of total depravity because it sets people up to be self-loathing. The more I read this stuff I see plenty of self-loathing but redemption is all works-righteousness. My new favorite website, http://everydayfeminism.com is so stridently so I’m amazed, amused, troubled by how people must twist themselves up in every deepening layers of identity politics righteousness to find absolution. This is religion of the most medieval variety. Hair shirts and self flagellation can’t be far behind.
Our Reformed perspective I think is in fact more deeply self-critical AND offers a greater hope. The fact that I’m a bigot and a natural born racist is not a new revelation. It’s just one of my ways to rebel against God and set myself up in my self-righteous state as my neighbor’s moral superior and social-media preacher. I’ve got ways of sinning they’ve not yet begun to contemplate or “call out”.
I think as we move forward on this journey with our culture we’ll find connection in our recognition of our failures but the great surprise of Christianity will be that one greater than ourselves has delivered us in ways we cannot do for ourselves. The Heidelberg Catechism then begins to sing I think. I’m not pessimistic about the church. Human nature does what it does even with its own cycles but again and again we discover that the old truth is still the truth even if we take a new route to get there. pvk
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