What is Good? Who Decides?

10/16/08
What Is Good? Who Decides?
Stuart McAllister

We live in an era of multiple images, increasing violence, and an overexposure to sexual advertising and media. The mood is dark; the feel is decadent. The very idea of goodness seems quaint, an issue of rhetoric, or a throwback to some bygone age. Perhaps we picture something like the movie Titanic, the romantic age of civility and order, yet all the while mixed with 90’s morality and behavioral patterns. “Whatever goodness is or was,” we might surmise, “it must have been something like this.”

The deeply expressed nostalgia in our culture is surely a sign of the hunger for something more solid, more lasting, and more secure--perhaps even something more virtuous. It is ironic then that much of the energy of our cultural artists and architects has gone into debunking and deconstructing all that is good and beautiful, only to replace it with the shallow, the ugly, and the ephemeral. The often culturally expressed desire for the good old days, for better times, or for people to be more civil and courteous again betrays our inconsistency. Though it has supposedly been redefined, the language of “the good” does not leave our vocabularies anymore than our hearts.

The massive contradictions and paradoxes that lie at the heart of our condition are too many to be catalogued. We seem to be experiencing a kind of cultural vaporization, where many ideas, practices, and values slowly but surely erode and then disappear. In such a time as this, what does it mean to be a sincere pursuer of the good?

I would argue that those who seek to offer hope, change, and good news to a nostalgic culture must wrestle with the issues both around us and within us. The good old days are not a lost hope, but perhaps a defining context for our lives. Nostalgia can be a misguiding illusion, or it can lead us to concrete questions about our place within this world. Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here and what is wrong? What is good and who defines it?

Stanley Hauerwas speaks of the people of God as "resident aliens," a community of individuals who live aware of the past, present, and future. Those who follow Christ have come to see that he has placed us within a great story and a great creation, where it is God who first defined what is good and continues to characterize it. While contemporary society exerts enormous power and influence on defining the good, even as it proclaims who the definers of good shall be, the church proclaims another story. While the voices of a great multitude lose their hope of the future and awareness of the present in the power of a nostalgia that draws them to something else, the people of God demonstrate a community in history with a past, a present, and a future.

What does it mean to be the people of God? What is our calling and mission? How then must we live? We need to embody the Christian story and virtues in our lives and lifestyles. If we seek the heart of Christ for a way forward, those who follow in his way can be a most effective apologetic. But how we live is as vital as what needs to be said. The relational component of truth needs to be held together with propositional presentations. The power of community, rootedness, and story need to be explored, shared, and communicated to the world.

As followers of Christ, we must recover hope, model hope, and give hope, for we offer the “now” and the “not yet” of the kingdom. We offer a rich history, a hopeful present, and the best of futures: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ shall come again.

Stuart McAllister is vice president of training and special projects at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.