Consent: The next default moral defense word of progressives?
A recent scandal involving a high-profile independent journalist has brought the phrase “consenting adults” back into the spotlight just in time for so-called “pride month.” A video was posted by someone, then reposted by the journalist Glenn Greenwald, that showed him involved in debauched, homosexual behavior. In response, he was not ashamed by the behavior but defended by saying it was between “consenting adults.”
Consent has become the default moral defense for everything from same-sex marriage to every other sexual behavior and misbehavior combined. It is also often used by the infamous “family-friendly” drag shows in which mentally ill men expose themselves to children while their parents sit there and applaud.
“Consent,” however, is a slippery term and will not stand the pressures of time. Like other concepts before it, over time, it will be used in such a ubiquitous fashion that it will become meaningless (if it has not already reached this point). In the mouths of progressives, this has happened to the word “love” and it will happen to “consent.”
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“Consent” is not a moral category. Sexual behavior ought to be governed by moral guidelines grounded in objective reality. As such, sex with a minor is morally wrong. Sex outside of marriage is morally wrong. Sex with someone of the same sex is morally wrong. And so forth. But if your worldview is at odds with objective moral reality, you need to come up with some other term to take its place. “Consent,” therefore, was picked, and it has failed.
Consent can describe moral behavior, but it is not a moral term. It can describe sexual behavior, but it can also describe the sale of a ferret. It can describe what a freshman desperate for quick cash does to be a subject in a psych department study. Consent can be coerced. Someone who consents can be tricked. It’s simply not an insufficient condition for moral decisions.
Christian morality is about self-control. Sound moral reasoning is first about what I do to manage my own behavior so that I treat others well, instead of figuring out just how much I can indulge my own passions at the expense of another person.
Morality is ultimately grounded in the character of God, the goodness of His created order, and is shaped by the power of the Spirit of God within a person. With these tools, a Christian is able to handle every issue that arises.
God’s character is revealed to us in His Word, which includes moral guidance and example. When God brought His people out of Egypt, the first thing He did was gather them around a mountain and show them how different He was from pagan idols and how different their lives would be as a result. The Ten Commandments began a process of self-revelation that led to moral guidelines that would define their covenant faithfulness.
God’s created order (Natural Law) is constantly communicating to us what God intends for us (e.g. Psalm 19). When we refuse to take reality seriously, we end up in crazy places like trying to define what a woman is, passing laws about naked teenage boys in girls’ locker rooms, and so forth. In other words, we end up in moral and intellectual chaos.
God’s Spirit at work within us shapes our desires such that we learn to no longer love the things of this world, but to long for and love the goodness of God’s ways. We are being shaped into the image of the Son of God while sin is being put to death and God’s life is being “put on.”
There is a better, more robust, and morally rich way of living with others. There is no reason to trade that treasure for the mud pie of “consent.”
Phil Steiger is the senior pastor of Living Hope Church in Colorado Springs, CO.
