Is there anything that everyone (or almost everyone) can agree on these days?
What tv shows do you like?
Is your favourite musician liked by everyone else?
Is COVID real?
I threw that last one in just to get you going.
I assume that everyone (or almost everyone) would agree that there has been scientific progress through the years, decades, and centuries. When people discovered how to make homes with second stories that was a kind of progress. So was indoor plumbing.
Even in religious circles that can be proudly anti-mainstream, there is mostly agreement that scientific progress is real. However, as someone who has preached in churches for many years, I can still encounter varied responses when I suggest that not only is scientific progress real, but so is moral progress. Of course there are outliers and exceptions, but, for the most part, forward steps have been taken in how we relate to one another. I grant you that the last few years have demonstrated how primitive we remain as a society and how moral progress cannot be taken for granted, but there are key ways in which society is more nuanced morally, more aware of the other, and more open to self-examination.
I recently saw part of an interview with Sister Helen Prejean. If you are old, like me, you might remember that Prejean was played by Susan Sarandon in the movie, Dead Man Walking. The movie, about a nun regularly visiting a man on death row, came out in 1995. In 1994 80% of Americans surveyed supported capital punishment, the death penalty. By the early 2020’s that number was down to 55%. My thought is that this is still troubling high, but a 25% drop in a relatively short period of time is considerable. In the interview, Prejean mentioned that one out of eight inmates on death row wind up being exonerated. That is, evidence comes out that proves they should not have been found guilty for the crime. She also mentioned that it is mostly poor, mostly black people who are executed and that, mostly, their crimes are the killing of white people. Generally, if it is a black person who is killed, the person who committed the crime is spared the death penalty. In other words, the impetus for support of the death penalty seems to be related to how closely the legal system, juries, lawyers, and judges (mostly white) have identified with the victims.
The evangelical church in the United States (and often in Canada) has largely been a demographic that has supported the death penalty. This is curious given its supposed pro-life stance, but is sometimes explained by the contention that the killer violated the sanctity of life. In Biblical interpretation, support depends on Old Testament refrains like “eye for an eye” and explains away words of Jesus such as “You have heard it said, an eye for an eye, but I say to you …”
The numbers show that many people have changed their view on things like capital punishment. For the purposes of this post, the stance is not mostly what interests me. What interests me is the living and dynamic nature of our moral judgments. The evangelical trumpeting of “moral absolutes” often referred to what those holding them believed. If you say that what you believe is an absolute and also that it came from God, you might be in dangerous territory of thinking too much of yourself.
More mature moral understanding sees that our moral vision changes and, hopefully, progresses. I don’t think just the same way I used to in terms of how I see morality. I am thinking that you don’t either. For many in relatively high control religious systems any flexibility around moral reasoning is a spiritual failure, backsliding.
It’s okay to grow up.
You might have voices in your head from religious upbringing that sound remarkably like church leadership or pastors or those who held power in a church. Such voices can sound like condemnation of your moral reasoning, and, if you give them too much weight, they can sometimes convince you that they are right (as they always insist that they are) and you are wrong, simply because you dare to question them.
Of course, there are positive and wonderful examples of moral wisdom in many churches, even in the midst of otherwise high control environments. It is not moral progress to deem yourself the trustworthy arbiter of all things moral against everything and everyone who thinks differently than you. Doing so is simply another version of what the same problem.
Moral progress is real, however, and churches that are looking backward rather than forward are unlikely to lead into any fulsome understanding of Christian faith.
The reason that Sister Helen Prejean (a nun, pretty religious herself and adamantly opposed to the death penalty) was being interviewed was that the opera Dead Man Walking is opening the season of The Met in New York. I’m not an opera guy. I think I would enjoy good productions, it has just not been part of my experience. If you have seen Dead Man Walking, the opera, or if you are going to, send me a review. I’d love to hear what you think.