Following the now infamous Harvey Weinstein, we’re hearing calls for Hollywood organizations, including the Academy, to set up policies and protocols “to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” This is an admirable goal, if a day late and a dollar short. But I have a question, how exactly do you do this in an industry based upon moral relativism?

If an industry spends millions saying, “anything goes,” and then it does, on what grounds does it now condemn virtually any behaviors? And why do we believe policies generated in H.R., or therapy for that matter, will make the problem go away?

And lest we single out Hollywood and miss the greater problem, men in Sports, Military, Politics—on both sides of the partisan aisle—Business, Media, and even Religion have done and likely are still doing what Weinstein did.

In 2005, Access Hollywood caught then businessman-turned-TV-star Donald Trump on video tape, which later surfaced during the 2016 presidential campaign. On tape, Trump said, "I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” He went on in this tape to make significantly more lewd remarks. He was referencing kissing and groping, along with conquest attempts, women without their consent. All this he later dismissed as just "locker room talk,” but the talk show host in the same video, Billy Bush, lost his job.

The Catholic Church was engulfed in the early 2000s (though other scandals occurred earlier) with a sexual abuse scandal that eventually reached worldwide proportions. Dozens of men accused priests of exploiting them when they were children in the church.  Millions were spent in closed settlements and periodically similar sex abuse scandals continue to plague the Catholic Church.

In 2011-2012, the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal broke, badly tarnishing the reputation of Penn State University and legendary football coach Joe Paterno, who died at age 85 in January 2012, some said of a broken heart.  Sandusky is now in prison, but the hurt among scores of young men and their families continues.

American professional sports, especially the NFL, has its own boatload of now seemingly regular sex harassment or assault or related domestic violence issues. Among the highest profile recently is Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott. And even the U.S. military is plagued by sexual harassment and assault scandals, including at the highest ranks featuring “the swinging general” and “flirtatious” texts involving both married and non-married troops.

Since at least Francis A Schaeffer and others in the 1960s, some philosophers, theologians, or Christian pundits, including women, have warned us about moral relativism, the idea there is no right or wrong. This view sounded good to a culture that wished to throw off all restraints, especially sexual. But here we are in 2017 and we’re being overwhelmed by polarization, hyper-partisanship, crudeness, fake news, lack of integrity and character in “leadership,” declining free speech, racism, sexual harassment or assault...

None of what’s threatening us is a surprise. We’ve known all along that if we throw off moral categories what we have left is “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6).

The solution is not TV psychologists.  It’s not more stringent H.R. policies, though these may be needed.  The solution is certainly not Democrat or Republican.

The solution is nothing short of a revival of public cultural consensus re the idea of objective truth—the idea right and wrong—truth—existing outside ourselves and that we all are held individually responsible and accountable. This comes first and foremost from the Bible, the Word of God, and secondly from the Church teaching moral principles, speaking the truth with love, but by all means speaking the truth without compromise.

The Word of God long ago specified how men and women should relate morally, socially, physically, and in terms of mutual respect.  We don’t need new standards. We need a revival of commitment to old, eternal standards.

Without this renewal of belief in truth, meaning there is identifiable right and wrong, the centrifugal forces in our culture will continue to spin toward irrationality. 

Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2017    

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