Addressing Moral Failure in American Religion
Intro
I get asked all the time “what is wrong with people these days?” As an individual trained in theology, philosophy, sociology and psychology, while I am nowhere an expert, my life experience and training has given me a great wealth of understanding and in some areas, expertise. The answer to this question is very multi-dimensional and complicated.
The Church collectively both Catholic and Protestant has been marred over the entirety of my professional career spanning back to the late nineties by a multitude of scandals and bad theology. From sex abuse scandals, inappropriate use of money and pastors with bank accounts larger than some of the smaller town churches and communities I have served, our Church has in many ways ceased to be a safe space in the public square.
Our Christian faith, while always individualistic facing has become problematically more so in America and elsewhere. I believe our cure to this is turn back to the faith of Jesus, who in first century Jewish Palestine and in 21st century Judaism continues to be collectivistic. As members of Commonwealth of God, we have lost our image of the Christ presence in all we encounter. We have allowed sin in the form of our selfish desires to destroy erode the love that the historical Jesus built his movement on and we have made God in our own image, based on our own desires.
In this post, I want to explore our brokenness through two teachers you will find familiar in my work, Benedict and John Wesley.
The Wesleyan Posture
John Wesley believed that you could not truly love God if you did not love your neighbor. In this morning’s devotions, I was reading from Deuteronomy 22:1-3. Here we are challenged to not ignore our neighbor. In these early Jewish texts, we begin to see the collectivist nature of the faith, the faith which forms Jesus’ global understanding.
John Wesley taught that being saved and growing in your faith isn’t something you do alone—it happens best when you’re part of a community. He wanted his followers to see that true Christian life means caring for others, helping those in need, and making a positive difference together. In Wesley’s view, faith isn’t just a private matter between you and God; it’s about working side by side with others to build a loving, supportive, and just community. When we help each other and hold one another accountable, our own faith becomes stronger, and we live out the kind of love that Jesus taught.
In modern America, the concept of social holiness serves as a prophetic challenge to any religious practice that reduces Christianity to a private transaction between an individual and God, urging the church to embrace the communal accountability and radical social engagement required to truly “spread scriptural holiness over the land.” Looking to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he challenges us to not engage in “cheap grace”. Here, Bonhoeffer emphasizes that it is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, and grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Many Christians stand at the cross aligned with the executioner rather on the side of the executed. We are in the boat we are in because we believe that the executed or the oppressed are less than us, forgetting that God’s love knows no color, race or sexual identity. God’s love is insistent. We have gotten so comfortable with othering those who hold different views from us that we have made it an official national religion. However, Wesely saw things much differently.
In two of his sermons, “The Scripture Way of Salvation” and his defining philosophy of “Social Holiness” he models for us how we should proceed in fixing our broken moral compass. As a reformer, Wesley’s messages for 18th century England are a reminder to 21st century America that the proof of one’s justification was a life pursuing active holiness, both in personal character and in commitment to collective well-being. This insistence stands as a constant challenge to a powerful American religious culture that often privileges private piety and cultural comfort over prophetic public justice.
Finally, we need to address John Wesley’s concept of “prevenient grace,” which means God’s grace comes to us before we even realize it. Even when people aren’t thinking about God or spiritual things, God is already working in their lives.
Why does this matter? The Bible says people’s hearts are often selfish and confused about what’s right or wrong. We tend to see ourselves as the good guys, even when we’re not, and often want payback instead of making peace. Our sense of right and wrong gets messed up.
So, how do we get back on track? Prevenient grace is the answer. Because of Jesus and his sacrifice, God’s grace reaches us, teaches us, and helps us tell good from evil. When God offers forgiveness, prevenient grace helps us admit our mistakes and accept that forgiveness. Even our ability to choose what’s right comes from God’s grace, and it’s only through grace that we can be truly humble.
Benedictine Humility
Addressing the concept of humility, I must turn to a guide who has been with me the entirety of my journey in the church, Benedict and his thoughts on humility. So much was humility part of Benedict’s thoughts that he devotes an entire (lengthy) chapter on humility.
Beginning this reflection on humility, I would like us to consider these scripture verses from the Gospel of Luke and Psalms 31 and 131:
Whoever exalt themselves shall be humbled, and whoever humble themselves shall be exalted (Lk 14:11; 18:14).” In saying this, therefore, it shows us that every exaltation is a kind of pride, which the prophet indicates has been shunned, saying: “O God, my heart is not exalted; my eyes are not lifted up and I have not walked in the ways of the great nor gone after marvels beyond me (Ps 13:1).” And why? “If I had not a humble spirit, but were exalted instead, then you would treat me like a weaned child on its mother’s lap (Ps 131:2).”
When we consider who Jesus was and the context in which the Old Testament scriptures were written, we must consider the source and time they were written and then figure out how it applies to us. Considering Jewish culture then and now, we find that the culture exhibits both collectivist and individualist traits, emphasizing community responsibility while also valuing individual identity. This balance is reflected in Jewish teachings that highlight the importance of both personal and communal obligations.
In my community of Benedictines, I found this challenge, “If the twentieth century has lost anything that needs to be rediscovered, if the western world has denied anything that needs to be owned, if individuals have rejected anything that needs to be professed again, if the preservation of the globe in the twenty-first century requires anything of the past at all, it may well be the commitment of the Rule of Benedict to humility.” For Benedictine spirituality, humility is not about being a doormat; it is a profound spiritual technology for accurate self-assessment in the sight of God. It is the realization that “I am not God,” which liberates the individual from the self-will that causes moral collapse, and restores the moral compass by fixing its true north on God’s will, rather than personal ambition.
From the Benedictine perspective, humility offers a corrective to our broken moral compass by countering pride, entitlement, and self-exaltation. Where pride leads to a sense of entitlement and cover-ups to safeguard reputations or institutions, Benedictine humility reminds us that authority is not a right but a responsibility, and that true spiritual discipline requires honest self-assessment and lowly self-regard. Rather than seeking fame, power, or indulging in frivolity, the Benedictine path calls us to a serious, grounded approach—one that resists the temptation to make church about image or influence and instead anchors our leadership and communities in authentic humility.
Conclusion
In closing, we have a significant problem with the way we are relating to people in our American Christian tradition. We have let the sin of pride and self-indulgence infect our way of being. We stand on the side of the executioner and in an attitude of perceived love, we hold people responsibility for calamities that we created when we disabled systems of support, love and compassion.
Benedict and Wesley offer us a road map by taking us back to the basics, at attitude of love and grace and a path of humility. As communities of faith, we must restore our communities moral compass being beacons of love, social holiness and humility. We must lean into the scriptures and take seriously Jesus’ call to social justice and addressing the disparity between the haves and have nots. We must become prophetic witnesses to the suffering amongst us. By recommitting ourselves to authentic discipleship—marked not by comfort or exclusion, but by courageous love and truthful accountability—we can begin to heal the fractures within our churches and society. This journey calls for honest self-reflection, collective action, and a willingness to stand with the marginalized, ensuring that our witness is one of hope, justice, and radical grace for all.
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