A moral obligation to God or man?

In early October, Huffpost reporter Caroline Bologna began an article with these words: “For many Americans, the gap between Christian teachings and MAGA politics is baffling.” I typically disregard stories with this kind of opening, each one singing to the same tune of a straw-man argument cloaked in moral compromise.

As I kept reading, however, I came to realize that this form of reporting and editorializing is more pernicious than I initially thought. Bologna proceeds to create a dichotomy between “vertical morality” and “horizontal morality,” the moral obligation to obey God versus the moral obligation to one another.

She gets her definitions of Christian morality from ex-vangelicals like April Ajoy, who wrote a book called Star-Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding A True Faith.

Ajoy explains that vertical morality is furthering the will of God no matter the cost while horizontal morality prioritizes the well-being of our neighbors. Vertical morality is portrayed as blind obedience to a higher power at the expense of loving others. That’s why, in this telling, it’s so easy for Christians to hop on the MAGA train, submitting to the governmental authority, in the meantime failing to love neighbors.

It’s not just a problem for today’s Christians, according to Bologna. After all, Abraham obeyed God’s command to sacrifice his son Isaac, despite that act being inherently immoral.

I couldn’t help but write in the margins, “says who?” Francis Schaeffer spilled plenty of ink on morality. Namely, in the absence of biblical morality someone else, likely an elite, will come up with arbitrary absolutes.

What’s worse is that Bologna and her deconstructed colleagues try to wield the Word of God to bolster their point.

One source observes that Jesus is compassionate, gracious, and flexible (what?) but conservative Christians are “less influenced by Jesus and more by the Old Testament and Paul.”

A simple survey of Christ’s own teachings in John would have shown Bologna that her source, lamentably, doesn’t know the Jesus that she speaks of.

In John we read that He and the Father are one. We read that Jesus is not flexible and the gospel is anything but flexible. Rather, mankind must be born again. We read of Christ’s own authority, that “the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.”

And in case she doesn’t like John, she could have turned back to Luke. After all, Luke’s account has the Golden Rule, and who doesn’t agree with “do to others as you would have them do to you”? But there, Bologna and her sources would also encounter those Old Testament, law-thumping, vertical morality Jews on the road to Emmaus in chapter 24.

Instead of reprimanding these men for their lack of horizontal morality, we read that Christ opened their eyes to the fact that the Law was always pointing toward Him.

One conclusion the article arrives at is that horizontal morality is the most Christ-like approach. It kills two birds with one stone, because if you love others you love Christ. Horizontal and vertical, both taken care of.

But that is, at best, incomplete. A Christian worldview establishes that the most loving thing you can do to your neighbor is submit in humble obedience to the will of God. If humans are created by God in His image, and therefore get their being and value from Him, wouldn’t He know what is best for them?

We don’t have to wonder what God thinks is best for us. It’s written in Scripture, and it’s quite obvious if you read it cover to cover instead of cherry-picking maxims that fit your worldview.

The Serpent in the garden convinced mankind that being God-like was best. Today, we still believe that the best thing for us is being our own gods. As a god, you create your own morality and code of ethics.

One other source in the article states that vertical morality feels safe in chaotic times. That’s exactly right. She goes on to say, “it’s easy to measure your faith by private devotion or rules that you think are in the Bible, rather than by how you show up in the world.”

Is it? I beg to differ. And I hope that Ms. Bologna comes to realize that facing a Law from Scripture in private devotion is the most difficult thing we can do, because when we look at our performance before that Law, it is abysmal.

Our vertical morality is the most condemning worldview possible, but it leads to the most glorious worldview because of God’s mercy and love shown in Christ. I have no doubt Ms. Bologna has had her fair share of poor Christian examples contribute to this pessimistic outlook. So, it’s a great thing that Christianity and morality are not defined by Christians but by Christ.