America’s shrinking moral minority

Each week, The World and Everything in It features a “Culture Friday” segment, in which Executive Producer Nick Eicher discusses the latest cultural news with John Stonestreet, president of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Here is a summary of this week’s conversation.

Though the surprise election of Donald Trump as president has dominated the news since Wednesday, results on down-ballot questions will have a lasting impact on American culture, too.

California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada voted to legalize recreational marijuana use, and Colorado allowed physician-assisted suicide.

“This is not a moral win. This is not a strong rebuilding of civil society,” Stonestreet said, noting that the assisted-suicide law in Colorado, which fails to protect vulnerable, terminally ill patients, passed by a ratio of 2-to-1.

“Overall, we’re saying that some lives just don’t matter as much,” he added, pointing out that the success of recreational marijuana and assisted-suicide initiatives shows how the culture is skewing toward a socially progressive vision of life.

“As a culture, we’ve lost our ability to delay gratification or to do the right thing for the right reason,” Stonestreet said, adding that the presidential election underscored the moral poverty the culture faces: “We can’t say this was a rejection of a morally corrupt candidate for a morally acceptable candidate. Both candidates are highly morally questionable. … This election was a reflection of what’s happening in the culture.”

Listen to “Culture Friday” on the Nov. 11 edition of The World and Everything in It.