By David Hegg
Several events around the nation have led pundits and observers alike to label certain actions “unconscionable.” The word defines what is considered unreasonable, wrong, or unreasonably excessive. To engage in “unconscionable” activity is to go beyond the restraints of a reasonable person’s conscience. In today’s society it also is code for what someone considers reprehensible, dangerous and ultimately needing to be destroyed.
The assumption is that there is a “societal conscience” that sets the standard for what is reasonable behavior in our culture. To go against it is to act in a manner that is “unconscionable.” But this raises two essential questions: Who gets to define “conscience” and, more importantly, who gets to inform it?
Here’s my attempt to do so. First, the conscience is like an alarm clock. It acts on the information we put in. Like the clock, the human conscience simply acts according to the information it is given. You set the clock, you train the conscience, and both will act accordingly.
Second, given that a conscience needs to be “set,” what do we do when opposing world views attempt to “set” it, to input the necessary data? It is clear that a clash of world views is raging today between those who define “reasonable” as logical and aligned with propositional truth, and those who define it according to their desires.
We are watching our national conscience being hijacked and re-set by those so addicted to personal happiness and political power that they are brazenly replacing truth and integrity with spin and expediency. They are proclaiming politicized anti-science as actual science and declaring that those opposing their progressive ideology in many areas are on the wrong side of history.
But the truth is those who believe a mutilated biological male can become a female are on the wrong side of genetics. Those who insist one’s nature is determined by skin color are on the wrong side of both biology and psychology. Those who proclaim that the freedom of unrestrained sexual activity paves the road to happiness are on the wrong side of sociology, whose experts have proven that the erosion of the nuclear family is a primary cause of myriad personal and societal challenges. And those who have excised God from their world and are attempting to do so for the rest of us are not only ignorant of human religious history and the concept of religious pluralism. More importantly, if they persist in their unbelief they will find themselves on the wrong side of God for all eternity.
Simply put, these progressive reformers are the weak minority masquerading as the powerful, intelligent forces to whom we must swear allegiance even as they work aggressively to “reset” our societal conscience, and cancel all who refuse to be reset. They champion their “woke” status but are actually hoping the rest of us stay asleep while they go about replacing reality with absurdity, our national honor with deep-seated self-condemnation, and our belief in God with the futility of believing we are only material beings, the product of chemical processes, devoid of an immaterial soul, and destined to live in a world where life sucks and then you die.
No thanks. I am on this Earth for something much better, much more useful and purposeful. I am here, and so are you, to build our beliefs on what is factual not fanciful, and to live out honorable values that benefit all rather than contribute to an ideology designed to radicalize and divide our citizenry.
Integrity dictates that those who recognize a problem should also present a possible solution. Here’s mine. It will not be hard to reject and replace the aggressive and absurd ideology that human nature is determined by skin color — white, Black, or variations thereof — and that genetic sexuality can be authentically changed, that spending billions on a problem is actually a win even when the problem has increased exponentially, and that true freedom is found in replacing God with self. No, it will not be hard. We can do it if we will simply let our voices be heard en masse shouting, “The emperor has no clothes!”
For too long the reasonable masses have been afraid to say “he’s naked” for fear of being canceled. But the truth is stark, and those who refuse to remain afraid and silent actually have the most power because truth is on our side. Truth will never be eclipsed, either by the opposition of its enemies, or the poor behavior of its friends. My prayer is that we — you and me — will never settle for a counterfeit narrative no matter how it is dressed up. And further, that we will not allow fear to overwhelm what our consciences know is good and right and essential to our well-being and that of our children and our children’s children.
Local resident David Hegg is senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church. “Ethically Speaking” appears Sundays.
