East Leake Evangelical Church

East Leake, South Nottinghamshire

The State of The Nation: 25/10

A MAJOR MORAL ISSUE

Earlier this week Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, gave a major speech about the financial situation in the land. In particular he spoke about the Banks and highlighted the fact that they were now ‘too big to be allowed to fail’. He therefore called for them to be broken up and their power over the whole Economy to be reduced. He described this as ‘a major moral issue’ today. That was an extraordinary thing to say. People have challenged his assessment of the financial situation and especially his solution, but I have heard no-one challenge his description of it as a major moral issue.

Such is now the view of society and the nature of life and the world around us that the state of the Economy features as the most important thing there is. As one politician once put when talking about issues that win elections - “It’s the Economy, stupid!”

So other issues are not as important. And that means that a whole raft of moral issues are considered to be secondary. There are many that could be mentioned:

  • The challenge of the Environment and the question of so called ‘ warming’
  • The decay of marriage and the break-up of families with the devastating effects on children’ lives.
  •  The decline of inter-personal relationships and values resulting in the highest number of teenage pregnancy on record.
  • The terrible health and social damage that result from drug and alcohol abuse.
  •  The progressive and pervasive promotion of homosexual relationships and values, and the aggressive demand that everyone accept as normal the viewpoint that accepts these things.
  •  The growth of extremism and violence often based on racial and ethnic hatred reflecting conflicts in other parts of the world.
  •  The growing intolerance towards Christian values and the attacks on the rights of Christian people to live out their values even though they benefit society.

All of these things and many others are not the major moral issues in Britain today. The conduct and control of the Banks are.

This shows us quite clearly how much Materialism has entrenched itself in the value systems of our culture. There was a day when public policy and popular values developed from three major factors - the Economy, Legal Principles of Justice (sometimes called Legal Rectitude), and Judeao-Christian Morality. The latter two obviously had direct reference to the Bible and especially the Ten Commandments. The balance between the three ensured that social relationships and issues of respect and tolerance were given as much value as economic practices. But with the loss of the influence of Christianity in our land, greed and wealth creation have become utterly dominant, and the devastation being caused by that can be seen from many of the issues listed above.

What we have is the rise of idolatry as dramatic and destructive as anything you can read about in the Old Testament when the Israelites turned from the one true God and went after false gods. Materialism and her twin sister Hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure, now so dominant that to challenge them would be incomprehensible to most people. To ask the question whether we really do need to increase our wealth would be dismissed as madness. Yet the truth has to be faced that the values that have driven the world to the brink of total financial meltdown are found in more places than the board-rooms of major banks.

I am sure that when it comes to Economic matters Mervyn King has few equals. But when it comes to moral matters he is way off beam. The real issue is GOD. That is the major moral matter to be considered; the worship and honour of Him to whom we must all give an account.

The greatest need in Britain, therefore, is not how to curb the bankers (although that needs resolving). The greatest need is a return to the Bible and to hearing the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The only hope for all the moral dilemmas that face us is for men and women to repent of their sin and rebellion and to trust in Jesus as their Saviour and Lord. If that were to happen in large numbers across the nation many of the other problems would start to be resolved. It has happened before in our history. Why can it not happen again? And so it must happen in you!