Morality by What Standard?

We're going to break point a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For The Colson Center, I'm John Stonestreet. The prophet Isaiah warned, "...Woe to those who call evil good and good evil." A modern example, as Dr. Al Moller recently described on his briefing podcast, is the moral incoherence of both believing that life is sacred and valuable, while also rejecting any consequences for those who take it. Recently, the state of Georgia charged a woman with the murder of her 22- to 24-week-old baby, who died within an hour of birth after her mother took abortion pills at home to terminate the pregnancy. This is the first murder charge in the state related to its six-week abortion ban. The Washington Post article that covered the story concluded by citing a 2022 Economist YouGov poll. According to the poll, 19% of respondents thought that a woman who has an abortion that violates state laws should be charged with murder, while 54% thinks she should not be charged, 26% unsure. And a more recent 2025 Pew Research Report described the moral confusion about life in even starker terms. Entitled What Do Americans Consider Immoral, the study asked about different behaviors ranging from eating meat to abortion. According to their data, 47% of Americans say having an abortion is morally wrong, while about half say an abortion is either not a moral issue or is even morally acceptable. An interesting parallel now exists between the abortion issue and the other great moral evil in American history, slavery. Americans made many compromises in the decades leading up to the Civil War and attempts to address slavery, most notably the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. That law sanctioned what was known as popular sovereignty, the idea that federal territories should decide by a simple majority whether or not they wanted slavery. That law provided the seeds for expanding slavery throughout America, including in territories where it had previously been forbidden. Abraham Lincoln responded instead by appealing to the moral standard that's found in the Declaration of Independence. Given the principle of human equality articulated there and in the natural law, even majorities must obey and teach that slavery is wrong. According to Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, who had authored the Kansas-Nebraska Act, was guilty of blowing out the moral lights all around us. Well, in the 2022 Dobbs Supreme Court decision, the court overturned Roe on illegal technicality, not on the basis of a created moral order that establishes the sacredness of every human life. And because the court then returned the question of legality to the states, the issue of abortion is now handled very much like popular sovereignty. The Dobbs decision was certainly a major victory for the pro-life movement, but because the court failed to declare abortion morally wrong, some states have now even enshrined it as a basic human right. So where does that leave us here in 2026? Well like with slavery and Jim Crow laws, the United States is now fundamentally divided, state by state, on a question of essential moral status and incredible moral gravity. In such a setting, these words from C.S. Lewis on the moral decay of culture are just as appropriate today as when he wrote them, quote, For my part, I believe we ought to work not only at spreading the gospel, that certainly, but also at a certain preparation for the gospel. It's necessary to recall many to the law of nature before we talk about God. For Christ promises forgiveness of sins. But what is that to those who, since they do not know the law of nature, do not know they've sinned? Who will take medicine unless he knows he's in the grip of disease? Moral relativity is the enemy we have to overcome before we tackle atheism, end quote. All of our ongoing debates about abortion and a myriad of other issues from gender dysphoria and the LGBTQ crusade to critical theory and immigration underscore the importance of returning to and answering basic moral questions. Is there a transcendent moral authority? By what standard do we know what's right and wrong? And do we judge? Is every human being valuable or not? Now Christians, of course, believe that God is the ultimate standard for all morality above all tradition and values, laws, norms or majority opinions. By his objective moral standard, which is revealed to us in both natural law and biblical revelation, all actions and policies can and should be measured. That requires pushing back against the moral relativism that's captivated hearts and minds and still pervades contemporary culture. It also involves appealing to and upholding God's clear moral standards amid vast moral confusion. For the Coulson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today, I want to say thanks to Susan of Knoxville, Tennessee. Thank you for being a Cornerstone Monthly Partner of the Coulson Center. You helped make this episode a Breakpoint possible. Today's episode was co-authored by Andrew Caracow. You appreciate Breakpoint as a daily dose of sanity in today's culture. Leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for more resources or to share this commentary with others, visit Breakpoint.org. Scripture offers us the capital T, true truth account of the world as it actually is. If this is the story of the world, there is a storyteller. In a world that says, live your truth, Christians have the responsibility to live out the truth. Truth Rising the Study explores the true story of the world through creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. You'll see this cultural moment through the bigger story of reality written by God. Start this free study today at CoulsonCenter.org slash study. That's CoulsonCenter.org slash study.