Inadequate ideologies

Recently, a Wall Street Journal poll announced that both political parties—Republicans and Democrats—are now held in low regard by the American people. Usually if the fortunes of one party decline, the other party increases—sort of a zero sum game. Now, however, for the first time in polling history, both parties come up in negative territory.

Why would this be? Well, the driver who took me to do a CNN broadcast recently gave me a hint. He didn’t know who Karl Rove was, and he didn’t know who all the people up on Capitol Hill were who were calling for his scalp. Nor did he care. He dismissed it as just politics, that is, ideologically driven politics.

When ideology begins to replace revealed truth as the basis for governing a society, you inevitably have the kind of polarization we have in America today, Reds vs. Blues. Ideology is a man-made political formulation for how people should live their lives together and is, therefore, from our perspective as Christians, inherently flawed. And it’s dangerous when a society becomes so polarized over ideology that it lacks a frame of reference for agreeing on the common good.

This all started when moral relativism took root in America, beginning in the sixties on the campuses and then invading popular culture—back when Time magazine asked that provocative question, “Is God dead?” When this happened, the overarching standards of truth and moral behavior historically governing our society were undermined. And forty years of aggressive secularism since then have simply erased the idea of moral absolutes—no such thing as truth; everything is a matter of personal preference.

This eliminates the possibility of reasoned, intelligent discourse. Since people are attracted to different ideologies, all we can do is clash. So every issue about how we govern ourselves, or what our standards ought to be, ends up in a titanic wrestling match.