When Expectations Have No Basis in Truth

I haven’t written anything for this website for a couple of years. It is time to renew and refurbish Unmet Expectations. I won’t bore you with the reasons for not keeping up beyond a simple, life happens, statement. But recently, the Lord has been dealing with me on some things that seem relevant to my website that I’ve neglected. So, look for more regularity going forward.

The last few days I have been thinking about the basis for the various expectations people have for each other and for themselves. Traditionally, a combination of natural law and biblically based expectations have been the norm, some might say, even the foundation for determining right from wrong in Western society. Expectations are simply the application of those norms in society and in individual lives. But the question I am raising here is two-fold: first, what is the current foundation for right and wrong in American society, and secondly, what expectations are generated from that foundation? Here are some thoughts on origins of current cultural expectations.

What is the foundation for right and wrong in America? Obviously, there are competing philosophies at the moment. A few of these philosophies are current. Woke-ism has a set of beliefs, so does secular humanism, naturalism, and Darwinian Evolution, that undergird the expectations they have for others and for the society at large.  Religions like Christianity, Islam, and Eastern varieties like Hinduism and Buddhism to name just a couple, have many expectations for their followers to obey. I suspect all of these philosophies, religious or secular, oppose each other in some way, but their real opponent is truth. Which one, if any, can demonstrate that their philosophies, beliefs, and expectations are the right ones? Each claims a corner on truth, but not all can be true at the same time in the same way.

In the United States, it seemed until recently, that objective truth existed and could be verified and acted upon in society at large. While many, at least on paper, of our United States institutions such as the Constitution, the Judiciary, and, allegedly, the Justice Department, were founded on what is often called the Judeo-Christian Ethic, those foundations have been under attack for decades. And no – slavery was not an institution founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic – it was more about greed which is an expectation for another post. Frankly, I’m not sure legitimate institutions such as marriage and family, education, both public and private, and personal rights such as free speech and freedom of religion will survive the presents attacks from those who see them as tools of oppression (more on that later) without an intervention from God.

In previous generations there was at least a nod to the validity of, say, the Ten Commandments as foundational for determining right and wrong. The so called, Blue Laws were instituted by New England Puritans before the American Revolution in an attempt to regulate human behavior based on the 10 Commandments and other Judeo-Christian requirements. Such laws still existed in the 1970s and 80s, at least in the Southern United States limiting the types of goods and services one could purchase on Sunday. But the point is, these laws, and societal expectations were at least loosely based on these religious foundations.

In the 21^st Century, those quasi-Christian foundations, and the expectations they produce

seem largely irrelevant at best, and, for some, the direct cause of most of society’s ills today. Wokeness, which is based in large part on the concept of white privilege expressed through the power of oppression over non-whites, wants to assume power over not only the real or true abuses of the past, but of the institutions they see as continuing to foster oppression. Their battle-cry is Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and their expectation seems to be to demolish American institutions and their foundations in favor of a new paradigm which is really not new at all!   It’s been done before whether you speak of the experiments with Marxist doctrine, or, I think more to the point, the French Revolution.

Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, on the European continent, the French people rose up against their oppressive and greedy monarchy, killing many so-called nobles including King Louis the XVI, and Marie Antionette. The violence and death were of a spectacular nature with conservative estimates standing at thirty to forty thousand killed over a ten-year period. But the point is, the French Revolution changed the foundation upon which the society determined right and wrong, and thus, the expectations changed. While the French Motto – LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ – “LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY” sounds good, it is founded on secular humanism, a philosophy that puts man at the center of all things. Gone is the expectation to follow and obey one’s Creator.

“Sans” (without) the level of violence of a French Revolution, America has largely capitulated to the tyranny of the individual as the center of all things, and as the determiner of right and wrong for him or herself. Gone are the restraints of a religious ethic or even the rule of natural law as crime spirals out of control in major cities across the country. Gender dysphoria is no longer an illness or disability, but a right to be celebrated and affirmed. You know obvious right and wrong has been turned upside down when a mother exercises the state sanctioned personal privacy right to execute another human being who has no rights as that innocent and helpless baby resides in the mother’s own womb. The foundations of truth in America are not beginning to crumble, they have been all but pulverized in a headlong dash to see who will prevail.

Power is both seductive and addictive. Once you have it as an individual, you just want more and more and more. When you don’t have power institutionally, you will do everything in your power to gain it. Thus, the banshee cries to call America racist, oppressive, and evil. Those in power based on a Christian view of the world must be replaced by those who see Christianity for what it is – oppressive – outdated – and irrelevant. Christians must be replaced in the seats of power by those who are more enlightened.

To say that these changes from a Christian based philosophy to govern society to a hodgepodge of competing philosophies has resulted in division is the understatement of the century. To denounce the competing expectations generated around these philosophies and insist society return to that “old-timey religion” of a bygone era is to traffic in naivety. The only way to survive this side of the Second Coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ, is to know and practice the truth God has revealed to us in the wisdom of His Word. When Jesus claimed in John 14:6 that HE, Jesus is the “way, the truth, and the life,” he was making a truth claim that Christians must adhere to if they are to be called Christians at all! In my next post, I will seek to answer the second part of the question: What expectations are generated from these philosophies, and I will add – what do we do about them?