Make America Moral Again

Posted in: News By House Divided on May 5, 2019

On April 30th, former Vice President Joe Biden appeared on “Good Morning America” where he was asked about his recently announced candidacy for the office of President. Among the field of 21 democrats seeking the presidency, Biden is the current front-runner among likely Democratic voters, with 39% support. During the interview, Biden was asked if he had a presidential motto, he responded, “Make America Moral Again”. Biden did not say how he intends to accomplish his objectives, if elected.

Ever since her founding, America’s leaders have spoken about the importance of morality. In 1796, during his farewell address, President George Washington said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

What is morality? In the 1828 edition of his dictionary, Noah Webster wrote that moral is “with reference to right and wrong. It is applicable to actions that are good or evil…and has reference to the law of God as the standard by which their character is determined”. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. agreed with Webster. In 1963, from a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, King wrote, “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” For King, the moral standard for determining right from wrong was found in the Bible.

Since the 1960’s, Americans have become increasing secular. With this change in beliefs, the national moral consensus we took for granted has evaporated. Americans are still intensely moral. Where they disagree – intensely – is with respect to the underlying moral authority they should rely upon to decide what is right or wrong.

As more Americans reject the Bible as the arbiter of national morality, irreconcilable differences have surfaced regarding how we, as a nation, ought to determine what is moral. For example, when asked about President Trump’s proposal to secure our nations southern border by building a wall, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D), objected saying, “a wall is an immorality…” Pelosi did not say what moral authority she relied upon to determine a wall is wrong – she just feels it’s immoral. That’s her truth.

At least two problems arise when moral reasoning is decoupled from an objective standard. First, it is difficult to refute someone’s subjective feelings of right and wrong. For example, are those who favor border security that includes a wall automatically immoral people? Second, feelings change over time. Today, secular Americans will argue the approach Martin Luther King, Jr. used to determine right from wrong was fine for him…but Americans have evolved far beyond his antiquated notions of morality.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never been an infallible guide for determining our national morality. Just ask descendants of African – American’s impacted by the Dred Scott decision, which made slavery a national institution, or the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision, which ushered in the era of “separate but equal”. When the Supreme Court gets it wrong, people pay – often with their lives.

Americans still want to do the right thing, but we no longer share a common moral foundation for deciding what is right. As more Americans reject the Bible as the standard for deciding questions involving personal and national morality, the divide between secular Americans and those who are traditionally religious widens. We witness this play out as political rivals seek to impose their competing and often conflicting moral visions on their fellow American’s through the process of electoral politics. Sadly, when it comes to our sense of national morality, there seems to be little common ground that might serve to unite us moving forward. A divide this deep will not simply go away.

In his farewell address, Washington expressed his parting concerns: “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion…reason and experience forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in the exclusion of religious principle”. For secular Americans, his sentiments are quaint, but out of date. For the traditionally religious, his warning is amazingly current.

Will the center hold? God help us!