Integrity in a Post-Christian America

America is now called a post-Christian place; its government is overtly attacking Christian beliefs about birth control, abortion, and gay marriage. The threat to these beliefs is a small though telling symptom of the larger social changes that, though little considered, are proceeding as traditional Judeo-Christian integrity departs. The problem is, abandoning America’s traditional religion discards its related moral behavior, too. And societies without a strong moral order are very unpleasant places to live — try Afghanistan, Somalia, or Mexico.

It’s instructive to compare two dictionary definitions of “integrity” from the same source, Merriam-Webster, in 1943 and in 2013.

1943 definition: Moral soundness, honesty, purity, freedom from corrupting influences or practices. (Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, 1943)

2013 definition: Firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility. (Free Merriam-Webster.com, 2013)

Both definitions agree on the avoidance of corruption. But the older definition implicitly assumes a shared single standard of morality, while the current definition implicitly assumes the existence of more than one such, and thereby equates them. The first was intended to reflect an objective standard applicable uniformly to all; the second, multiple standards of equal validity.

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