Change my life? OR “Morality is like Art. It’s a matter of Taste”

What is Christian morality, and why should I embrace it?
Consider: a few popular approaches to morality, contrast them with Christian morality
Ethical Hedonism
Perhaps the most common, least complicated and therefore most accessible moral system is Hedonism. It makes pleasure the most important pursuit of mankind, and in most cases, my pleasure.
So how do I know whether something is right or wrong?
Well the question is will it make me happy?
I don’t know if you looked at a self help book in WHSmiths recently, but they give us a real indication of what this will look like. You should do whatever will make you feel good about yourself. Are you feeling oppressed? Don’t be. Be confident and you can always get your way. Are you feeling angry? Don’t let it get the better of you, get it off your chest? Are you unhappy with your marriage? Don’t suffer needlessly, get a divorce. Are you unhappy with being pregnant right now? Don’t let it worry you, have an abortion.
The problem with this approach is that pleasure is a great by-product of life, but a dangerous goal.
I read part of Eric Clapton’s autobiography in the Sunday times a few weeks ago. It became so apparent that here was a man who, in all things had pursued unadulterated pleasure, and he had the tools to do it with as well. So he had a string of beautiful women, whomever he fancied at the time, whether he was married to them or not. He drank he took drugs, lived the high life, any pleasure that money could afford, and it left him a destitute man in the end, because no pleasure was sufficient to cure his yearning, and indeed many pleasures he obtained a great cost, a cost to his family and private life which he only paid later. The fact is an individual may get through his own life unscathed but the mess he will leave behind in other’s lives is untold. So pleasure is not a good one to live for.
Moral relativism – cultural morality
Secondly there is moral relativism. An individual guides himself not by any greater, higher moral principles but often, though not exclusively espouses a cultural morality, that means he chooses the path of least resistance according to the society he is in. He hates the apparent arrogance of those who believe there is one absolute idea of right and wrong. Who are we to lay exclusive claim to morality. What is right for one person may not be right for another. But since we have to choose some kind of code, he’ll go for the society’s consensus. If everyone seems to like the idea of giving to charity, sure he’ll give to charity. If it’s acceptable to dodge taxes, he’ll dodge taxes, If people around him are ganging up on the Jews, he’ll join in, if slavery is the norm in society, who is he to argue?
It’s attractive. The moral relativist doesn’t have to think much – because if morality is relative it doesn’t matter too much. No one can categorically say that what you do is wrong. So you don’t need to beat yourself up thinking about it.
The problem has already been highlighted. Without moral absolutes, ideas about right and wrong that are true for all time and all places, societies very quickly implode morally. The Moral relativist could not say, for example, that there was anything wrong with flying planes into the twin towers, cannibalism, the holocaust, or child labour. You see all these ‘crimes’ were committed by individuals who, according to him, have just as much right to decide what is right or wrong as he does.
You might be thinking, yes but how about moral relativism, only with a couple of unchanging ground rules, like don’t murder, don’t oppress etc.
But that isn’t moral relativism. The moral relativist who signs up to the Human rights Charter is no longer relativist. He is a moral dictator, an absolutist, he is not tolerant at all. The fact that lost of people agree with him does not make him any less absolutist.
Moral absolutism
So that leads us onto moral absolutism. That is laying down a code claiming it is the truth, living by it and justifying intervention in the affairs of others if they transgress against that moral code. This can be horrific, or quite acceptable. The Taleban in Afghanistan prohibited women from working; from wearing clothing regarded as "stimulating and attractive," including the "Iranian chador," viewed as insufficiently complete in its covering); from taking a taxi without a "close male relative"; washing clothes in streams; or having their measurements taken by tailors.
The fact is we are all in some way moral absolutists. Whether we call ourselves tolerant or not, whether we recognise it or not we all have some basic beliefs about right and wrong which we do not believe are cultural, or socially derived but are always true.
The problem is. Which moral absolutes are right. For example, why can you say it is wrong to kill someone because of their faith? What authority do you have over any other person?
But now it really matters. We are all absolutists of one kind or another and the bible says that is because we have God’s laws written on our hearts. Deep down, even if we differ on the rules, we all know there is right and wrong and we want to do right.

Christian Morality
This is where Christian morality comes in.
I believe it answers all those questions and more.
Christian morality has absolutes. But they are not just plucked out of the air, they are God’s commands. The only one in a position to make absolute, uncontestable judgments.
Why do Christians say murder is wrong? Not because they think they are clever, but because God says it.
Why do Christians believe sex is for marriage? Not because they think they are clever but because God says it.
Of course this is wonderfully liberating. Following the majority is an awful way of deciding what is right (imagine being a German during the 2nd world war), it’s just inconsistent to say that you don’t care about morality because everyone makes value judgments weighing up the good and the bad. So how should you live, well what better way than to live the way that the creator designed you. Imagine a monkey got hold of an excellent bottle of wine and went around hitting other monkeys with it because he knew no better. What a waste! How much better to do with it what the maker intended and drink it. In the same way, from our perspective we could easily make a mistake in the way we live because we do not understand what we were created for.
But Christian morality is far more than that. It’s not about following another set of rules, it’s about a whole new purpose.
Imagine you’re an extra terrestrial and your earthling friend invites you to a wedding. Unfortunately your rookie pilot took a wrong turn at the milkyway so you arrive late, only to hear the vows. You hear the following comfort her, honour and protect her,
and, forsaking all others,
be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?
Your English isn’t that good and so you miss the next bit until you hear “to have and to hold, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part” Now you have no idea of the background of the event and you can’t read human emotions Illustration about marriage.
You think marriage is just a bunch of rules. Getting married means committing to doing certain things and not doing others that’s all.
Well that’s a gross misrepresentation. Sure there are rules, but marriage is not about rules, the behaviour described in those rules is the outworking of a relationship. And they can’t be separated from the relationship. So, in a marriage relationship for example you can’t go and have sex with someone else who isn’t you spouse and then claim that’s ok because you thought married people are meant to have sex. It’s not just what you do, but who you do it for.
You can’t separate the action from the recipient of the action. It’s the same with Christianity. It is not simply a standalone moral code, which can be bought into according to choice.
Which means following a commandment in isolation doesn’t make you a Christian. It doesn’t make sense to say he’s nice to people and therefore is a Christian anymore than it makes sense to say he’s always doing romantic things for all sorts of different women therefore he’s a good husband.
Christian morality is not just following rules, it is embracing a whole new purpose. That purpose is to live in relationship to him and to live in honour and praise towards him through our moral decisions.

So – hedonism – doesn’t come up with the goods, and spells chaos for the world
moral relativism – an illusion, and who wants to say for example that genocide is a question of cultural context
moral absolutism – great but where do you get your ideas from?
Christian morality – wouldn’t it be a shame to be a monkey missing out on what life is all about because we failed to read the maker’s instructions.