CKB on Christian Morality

The pressure of society upon us is not, for the most part, violent. But there is again and again a pressure of public opinion which forces us away from the authority of God’s Word under which the Church must live if it is to be the Church. The Church, people say, must recognize that times have changed, and we cannot extend the old standards of belief and morality to be maintained even by ourselves, certainly not by society at large. We do not have to fear violence but we do fear the opinion of other people. I tread very carefully here, for I should not like to give the impression that I think all the customs, all the anathemas, all the shibboleths of our grandparents were right and should be maintained. There are things that ought to change. ‘The Lord has yet more light to break forth from his Word.’ But that is where the light and truth will come from, not from the convenient indifferentism of a society that has turned its back on God. What can I think when I read in the newspaper of the high proportion of university undergraduates who will have frequent sexual intimacy not only without marriage but with any substitute in a ‘permanent loving relationship’? — CKB 2006