We Know Better

Have you noticed the shift? Maybe. Unless you're as old as I am, you may not have been around long enough to detect it. But it's there, and it's real.

The shift I'm talking about is in the perception of reality. I am quite sure that the change started long before my day, but it's still quite visible in just the last 50 years. When I was growing up, religion was part of life. You went to church on Sunday. Your parents stayed married because that's what was required. No one questioned "In God We Trust" on our money. Science and religion didn't actually hate each other ... you know ... like now. We were religious and it was fine.

The shift (which actually started way back before I can even explain, I suppose) has moved our society into a two-tier system. On one tier you have "facts", those things that we know to be true. On the other tier we have "values". Now, where we used to have a large set of shared values, today the "values" tier is one of extreme personal preference. The idea is that we can all have our own set of values and that's fine, you know, whatever your values might be because, after all, they're not facts. We went through some metamorphosis that put a dividing line between the two. I suppose the biggest effect was in the tide of relativism which still washes over our society's thought processes. So we managed to move "facts" away from "values" and concede that there are no absolutes when it comes to values.

This shows itself very clearly when Christians succumb to the "facts are facts" premise. Very often, instead of questioning the facts, they will choose instead to try to correlate biblical truth to "facts". You see, facts are indisputable, so if the Bible doesn't seem to line up ... the Bible is wrong. Oh, no, we don't actually admit that. It's just the danger. So we'll have to explain why it is that the Bible actually aligns with the facts. And as more and more "facts" seem to contradict the Bible, the Bible moves further and further away from anything resembling "Scripture" or "reliable". You know, we have to move from the known to the unknown. We know facts; the Bible isn't a book of facts. That seems to make sense ... except too often the facts aren't quite ... factual.

Here's an example. The National Post did a story on a study in the journal of Pediatrics that suggested "Virginity pledges may not affect sexual behavior." The study compared teens who had made such a pledge with teens from similar backgrounds who had not. It turns out that there was little difference between the two groups. "See? The results suggest that the virginity pledge does not change sexual behavior." And the world rejoices. "Proof! All that 'abstinence' stuff doesn't work! There it is in cold, hard fact. Take that, values!" And we're expected to nod and back off and realize our error that our values were wrong in the face of the facts.

But wait! Is that right? As it turns out, The Wall Street Journal followed it up with a look at the reaction of the Press to the story. "Here's the rub" they say. "It just isn't true." As it turns out, the study compared conservative, religious teens with conservative, religious teens. One group took a pledge and the other didn't. The result? Very little difference. "See?!! That's what we said!!" No, wait. When compared with the rest of teens, it turns out that both of these groups are less likely to engage in risky sex, less likely to have teenage pregnancies, less likely to have premarital sex at all. In other words, it turns out that if you raise your kids with biblical values, it seems to make a difference in how they live their lives. So ... what does that say about "abstinence only" education? Nothing at all.

You'll find, if you examine viewpoints even lightly these days, that "facts" are king. Whether or not they are actually factual or reliable is irrelevant. "What we think we know" will, these days, always trump "faith" and "values" because we're much smarter than we used to be and don't we know it! What science discovers is trustworthy and what the Bible says is mere opinion. What we can determine about our world through experimentation is concrete and that whole "morality" thing is just a matter of preference. And don't you go trying to change it! Sadly, when Christians buy that line of thinking, they're in a downward spiral that is hard to correct.