Ethics, TV, life style and how to decide what is right and what is wrong.
My visit to meet the new Archbishop of Canterbury 15th March 2013
A basis for our society’s decision-making. We need an agreed basis for our collective decisions. We used to base our societal decisions upon a particular interpretation of Christianity. This consensus has given way to secularism and consumerism which may sound attractive but leave us without guidance in many areas. It seem permissive but then go astray and can be repressive. I would not chose Islam as the basis for our national ethics either since I am convinced of the truth of the basis of Christianity which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ and of the attractiveness of any society which genuinely embodies such a way of life. Christianity alone can safeguard justice and mercy in our society.
It is not a matter of securing privileges for Christians in their religious practice but of having a clear idea about our message to the world and our mission in it and of the hallmarks of the kind of society we want to build here in Britain. Opinion polls won’t do it. The market won’t achieve it. We need revealed law from outside us to shape our society.
Ethical choices for our society should include:
Abortion should be greatly limited and foetal life protected unless at the cost of the mother’s physical life.
Sunday should be a day of relaxation as a demonstration that money is not our ruler and that we want life to include adequate time for refreshment for people.
No euthanasia or it will introduce a horrible implied pressure on old people to get out of the way if they are otherwise to be a cost to society and to their children.
Sex is for the expression of tender love between marriage partners and for the pro-creation of children in the security of a loving family. Of course people make mistakes and they should be treated with love and mercy but we should not get confused about our ideals and norms. Sex before or outside of marriage messes up lives of individuals and families.
Sex between man and man is not approved in the pages of the Bible’s old or new testaments and there is no clear indication that this God-created ordering of the sexes has been withdrawn. I care about what God thinks. I want to live a life according to his ordering. I don’t want to antagonise Him. I do want His blessing.
People in anomalous sexual relations with members of the same sex should be treated with mercy and kindness but such practices should not be considered normal. Sexual orientation is a delicate and personal issue and homosexual sentiments must, I think, arise, at least partly out of a person’s life experience of parents and other close members of either sex and out of societal ideas about what masculinity and femininity consists of. Such ideas may have wandered from the ideas that God intends us to have.
Children should be taught the above in the family and at school. Teaching can healthily include upholding these principles while at the same time giving instruction about contraception and safe(r) sex but with the proviso that this is not the ideal and is only a way of limiting damage if the ideal is not observed.
Laws on marriage and their application should help protect the institution of marriage and its stability.
Laws against pornography should be strengthened and applied.
Gambling is unwise. Some people get addicted to it and they and their families get hurt. For their sake we should limit it much more than we do at present. We should not have a National Lottery. Poorer people put a lot of money into their dreams of success which would be better spent on necessities of life for them and their family and on things that truly celebrate life.
Media. This page is also intended to cover things which are the responsibility of the Dept for Culture Media and Sport. One of those is television. TV dominates the life and time (in hours viewing per week) of too many of us. It makes us passive and robs us of time we could use for our own health and for the good of society.