The sea was charged with anger. The storm raged like a lion out of a cage, smashing its watery fists against the pitiful vessel, tossing and throwing it around the heaving waves. A black fog covered the tempestuous sea like a suffocating blanket, its darkness tempered only by the blinding swords of light that slashed from heaven to earth. At the stern of the vessel, the captain clawed in vain to regain control over his battered vessel. He was well aware that scattered beneath the darkness was a minefield of rocks. Even the slightest of contact with any of them could prove deadly in this madness. O where is the lighthouse? For without it, how can we see in this present darkness?
In an age where the storms of conflicting morality rage, where is the lighthouse? For without it, how can we see in this present darkness? If we were to trace the development of western society through last few centuries, we will see a progressive secularization of society. By secularization, I mean the deliberate removal of religion and God from public life and government. Religion and God is now something relegated to the private sphere. Man is free to believe whatever he chooses in private but woe is the man who tries in public to impose it on his fellow citizens. Don’t talk to me about your Jesus Christ. That is a only matter between you and Him. In this reign of secularism, God is removed from the vocabulary of public life. In the once Christian America, prayer has been banned from schools; Christianity and Jesus Christ cast out from public life. Yet, rather than reduce division, secularism has created even more confusion. For we cannot run away from the issues of right and wrong. What should our stand be on abortion, on capital punishment, on freedom of speech, on the legalizing of casinos, on the recognition of gay rights, etc? How can a society decide on issues of the conscience, on issues of right and wrong? What basis do we have to determine these issues that mean so much to us?
With the dethroning of God from the vocabulary of public life, we have lost our moral point of reference. Every opinion of morality made by anyone is just that, an opinion. We have no basis, no reference point for judging that opinion. Morality is reduced to mere opinion and the conscience to the arbitrariness of feeling. The reason - having relegated religion to the private sphere, to each man his own, no one can now lay claim to a higher moral reference point to which he can judge conflicting moral view points. For a society devoid of a moral reference point, anything can be justified through sufficient persuasion and politics. History has seen the mayhem wrecked by a madman who tore the shackles of conscience from a society in the quest for the super-race. We are still bleeding from the senseless murders of Sep 11 done in the name of religion.
It is a dangerous thing when issues of right and wrong have no other legitimacy than the fact that our leaders say it is or that the majority of man say it is. It is a sad day when a society has to vote on its values. For if there is only you and me in the boat, how do we know who is right? In an age where the storms of conflicting morality rage, where is the lighthouse? For without it, how can we see in this present darkness?