TITLE: Is there a Moral Majority?
TEXT: Romans 3:10-18
PROPOSITION: We must make some progress in the war for
morality.
QUESTION: How?
KEY WORD: Guidelines
SCRIPTURE READING: Same
INTRODUCTION:
Decide Your Moral Values
Live by that Standard
Teach Morality
Changing the World
Does America Have
A "Moral Majority"?
"We probably have lost the culture war," a founder of the modern conservative movement said. Paul Weyrich, who coined the phrase "moral majority," sent a personal letter last month to supporters saying "politics has failed" and that "I no longer believe there is a moral majority." Americans have "adopted, in large measure, the MTV culture that we so valiantly opposed just a few years ago, and it has permeated the thinking of all but those who have separated themselves from the contemporary culture."
"What we've been doing for 30 years hasn't worked," said Weyrich, who was influential in forming the Christian Coalition, the Free Congress Foundation, and the Heritage Foundation. "While I'm not suggesting that we all become Amish and move to Idaho...we need some sort of quarantine."
Radicals during the 1960s used the slogans Turn on, Tune in, and Drop out, Weyrich said. He suggested that conservatives Turn Off (the television and video games), Tune Out (the mainstream culture), and Drop Out (of politics).
He urged conservatives to keep voting, but to stop expecting big changes from the ballot box. If conservatives have a choice between campaigning for a pro-life candidate and volunteering at a Crisis Pregnancy Center, choose the latter, he advised. Even if abortion was declared illegal, "in this culture you would create such an enormous underground you'd make Prohibition seem paltry."
Weyrich's disillusionment shocked some conservatives, and he reportedly heard from a number who asked for a retraction. The letter "touched a chord like nothing else I've ever done," Weyrich told The Washington Post. "People keep writing to say that I've put into words something they have been thinking for a long time."