A recent Gallup Poll shows that more than 9 in 10 Americans say they believe in God, a percentage that hasn’t much changed over the past 70 years that Gallup has been asking the question. Another recent Gallup Poll, however, shows the degree of moral confusion facing those same respondents.
According to Gallup’s 2011 Values and Beliefs poll, Americans surprisingly describe a whole host of social issues as “morally acceptable.”
Among the issues that a majority of Americans find “morally acceptable,” are: having a baby outside of marriage (54%), pre-marital sex (60%), medical research using stem cells from human embryos (62%), gambling (64%), the death penalty (65%), divorce (60%), and homosexual relations (56%).
Welcome to our “brave new world.”
For the first time, in the years that Gallup has conducted this poll, more respondents described homosexual relations as morally acceptable (56%) than those who described it as morally wrong (39%). Just four years ago, 49% of Americans still described homosexual relations as morally wrong in the Gallup Values and Beliefs poll. No doubt, homosexual activists, publicists, the mainstream media, and TV and movie personnel, who have worked so long and hard to attempt to normalize this behavior, are rejoicing.
Readers will be glad to know, however, that there are still a few things which most Americans still find morally wrong. They include the following: abortion (51%), cloning animals (62%), pornography (66%), suicide (80%), cloning humans (84%), polygamy (86%), and having an affair (91%).
The single area with the greatest amount of disparity was physician-assisted suicide. 48% find it morally wrong; 45% describe it as morally acceptable.
What the numbers demonstrate, more than anything, is the high degree of moral confusion which exists among Americans. They reject abortion, but see nothing wrong with destroying pre-born humans for the sake of their stem cells. They object to viewing nude images, but do not have a problem with seeing their unmarried partner nude, or having sexual relations with their unmarried partner. They still reject polygamy and extra-marital affairs, but embrace pre-marital sex and homosexual relations.
At the heart of it, all of the confusion points to a profound desacralization. What, if anything, do we still hold as Sacred? There are, it seems, few things that Americans hold as sacred – not human life, not marriage between one man and one woman, neither the unborn, nor the aged, nor the ill. The percentage of Americans who oppose the cloning of animals is equal to the percentage that supports the use of embryonic stem-cells for medical reasons. Greater respect is given to animal life than human life. Animal life, and recycling, and no tobacco. These are the things we hold as “sacred.”
Nine out of 10 of us might say that we believe in God, but so very few of us live as we believe. Few allow their belief to penetrate enough to change their behavior.
As is so often the case, the Church, in her great wisdom, predicted our present-day confusion.
“Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control,” wrote Pope Paul VI, in his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life). “Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality.”
Let them consider indeed….
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Those disappointing statistics are, unfortunately, no surprise. We can see this erosion of obedience to a higher moral power and find, even in our own families, there’s no sense of urgency to follow God’s commandments. Distracting messages and lies, an ever-quickening pace to life, and the trials of economic downturn and wars have eroded our vigilance. Will the Bridegroom find us waiting, with our lamps lit? It’s difficult to say, and everyday I pray for my family and the world. But, I do so with HOPE because our God is Mercy as well as Love, and I realize that, when all is done, His is the battle won.
Believing in God does not necessarily imply acceptance of any particular Church, creed, or set of moral norms whatsoever. And so the 9 in 10 Americans you reference includes, for example, the overwhelming majority of that trendy “spiritual but not religious” crowd. Their refusal to connect a belief in a higher power to anything other than a vague and syncretic sense of “spirituality” is quite consistent with the grounding of their moral judgment in what feels right to them, and what seems least mean and judgmental towards others. This may be an incorrect set of principles to live by, but these people are hardly “confused”. To the extent that their belief system is fuzzy and flexible—that’s not a bug, that’s a feature.
What I find much more curious are those who profess adherence to an established, reasonably orthodox brand of Christianity—who are even, in many cases, ordained or employed by such faith communities—yet fight against the idea that any consensual, adult sexual behavior or expression whatsoever can be considered morally wrong. What boggles my mind here are two things:
1) The ease with which they are able to publicly discard the overwhelming weight of Judeo-Christian moral teachings, which reaches back to the very beginning of recorded history, when it is inconvenient. (Yes, we all—I as much as anyone—commit sins, and thereby privately and episodically disregard moral teachings. But publicly calling the sinful good and teaching that to others is something different and on a whole other level.)
2) Their failure to propose any coherent rival set of sexual ethics. (If there is one out there, I would appreciate being pointed to it, as I’ve utterly failed to detect it in my perusals of their writings.) It seems to me that the sole alternative being proposed to orthodox Christian ethics is simply: “Sex is generally an a-moral subject…so if it feels good, an’ ye harm none (in your sole judgment), do it.” But if that’s the case…how can anyone possibly accept this and remain a member of any halfways-orthodox Christian community?
Cardinal Francis Arinze put it succinctly in a little ditty:
“Paddy Smith, he went to church, he never missed a Sunday;
But Paddy Smith, he went to hell, for what he did on Monday.”
When I read these statistics, I always wish it would be followed up the same survey being done somewhere like Franciscan Univ. or Thomas Aquinas College. I realize that to be statistically correct and scientifically relevant they are required to draw from a large population but still…..
I’d like to hear the results of the same poll being done perhaps at the upcoming World Youth Day. Reading those results would put a smile on my face where these results just make me shake my head in wonder.
Nice work here Tim, in fine prose again.
We all need to pray these numbers go our way, and that the national push back against abortion continues. Our once great country has lost its way, and our current administration is only leading us towards catastrophe…
Jeff
Our slippery slope to hell began when some testosterone-enhanced rock-a-billy singer got up on Ed Sullivan’s stage and sang, “Jailhouse rock,” or whatever, then we knew we were heades straight t’hail in a handbasket or burning baby grand piano after Jerry Lee Lewis started playing “Great Balls o’ Fire.”
Hellfire and swirlin’ hips o’ passion: You don’t need a theology degree to figure this out. Right?
Ahhh, but I love those oldies ... at least you could understand them and you didn’t need earphones to block out the real sounds of Hell by the time HEAVY METAL and worse, Heavy Contemporary Christian Rock hit the charts and the old timers hit the exits.
Time to listen to Lil’ Anthony ...
I believe that, sadly, the Church is as much to ‘blame’ as anyone or anything else for this moral confusion and ambiguity. Our Church itself is all too willing to compromise and water down ITS OWN TEACHING for the sake of political correctness and acceptance by the masses, rather than to stand its ground firmly rooted in Scripture and the Catechism. How else can we possibly explain the Catholic vote going for obama, the many obama bumper stickers in our Catholic parking lots, when we this was the most pro abortion, pro killing of our most defenseless, most anti-church teaching candidate in our history?? How many priests and bishops were willing to take a stand against the abomination now in our White House, at the risk of losing parishioners (and the dollars they could represent)? Until the Church is willing to take that stand…and to truly teach Church values and beliefs WITHOUT FEAR…OUR NATION IS DOOMED!
Well said Maria Lima!
“NO ONE KNOWS IF JESUS CHRIST EXISTED, AND IF HE DID, NOTHING IS KNOWN ABOUT HIM!” BERTRAND RUSSELL “WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN” 1928
To Mike from Kanada: the pagan Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (c55-c117 AD), who considered Christians to be weirdoes and social deviants, knew that Jesus of Nazareth existed. He said so in his “Annals of Imperial Rome,” and I quote: “Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius’ reign by the governor of Judea, Pontus Pilate.” He didn’t indicate any doubt as to Jesus’ existence, his founding of the Christian faith and his crucifixion.
@Maria Lima
I, too, add my “Well said” to that of Joseph Sweeney’s.
Have you ever wondered why no bishop, especially any at the leadership level of the USCCB, never wrote Senator Barrack Obama to ask him to clarify his answer to Pastor Rick Warren when the pastor asked him in the context of abortion, “When do you think a baby should be given ‘human rights’?”
Senator Barrack Obama was the Democrat nominee for President when Pastor Warren asked him that question during a hour long televised one on one interview before 3000 people at Saddleback Community Church. Obama’s response was, “The answer to that question is above my pay grade.”
Here’s a guy touted for being a Harvard Law graduate, a past editor of the Harvard Law Review, a Constitutional lawyer, and he doesn’t know when a baby should be given human rights?????
Where were the bishops? No bishop thought of asking this Democrat nominee for President to clarify his strange answer on behalf of Catholic voters; and for that matter, on behalf of the babies? Where was Cardinal George, the President of the USCCB and the head of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Obama’s hand picked “hometown” after graduating from Harvard? Where was the Illinois Conference of Catholic Bishops?
Yes, Maria, your post was “well said!”
The silence of the bishops on that obvious and critical question was deafening.
@Tim
“Among the issues that a majority of Americans find “morally acceptable,” are… the death penalty (65%).
You included in your list of morally “confusing” the “death penalty.” I find that confusing. Why would you include that when the Church for centuries found capital punishment to me moral? What has changed that allows you to say that historic position of the death penalty is now immoral?
I blame Protestantism. With 3500 different churches, all believing in their own interpretation of things, the only real sins anymore are lying, robbery and murder, everything else is negotiable or explainable with a few lines of scripture—usually from the Old Testament.
After Rome fell, and the lights went out, the Catholic Church was the only remaining institution and began to rebuilt civilization one brick at a time. It will be doing it again soon. At that time, all of this liberal quasi-religious blather will pass away and people will return to the one true church.
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