Truth, Responsibility, and Love

We live in trying times. Horror stories come out of Philadelphia about the abortionist Kermit Gosnell; terrorists strike across the globe, and here at home; unemployment plagues our nation; the Supreme Court may redefine marriage; religious institutions are being coerced into violating their consciences; our entitlement programs put us on the brink of bankruptcy.

Our world, our country, and yes, our churches and our families, are in crisis. And these communities desperately need what Regent University graduates have to offer.

You graduate into a society of widespread individualism and relativism, where man is the measure of all things. You will hear people speak of human rights, but rarely of human nature, or nature’s Author. You will hear people appeal to natural rights, but rarely to natural law, or the Natural Lawgiver.

You will hear some claim a right to do whatever they want, provided it doesn’t harm others, by which they mean others who can complain about it. (Notice where this leaves the vulnerable, the marginalized, and the unborn.) You will hear others claim a right to fulfill their desires without consequence, without judgment, but with subsidies. (Just think of the Life of Julia.)

Many believe that they have no responsibilities to others except those that they choose. But what if you have unchosen obligations? What if you have obligations to others by the sheer fact that you exist—and that you exist alongside neighbors, in the context of community?

What if, in addition to rights, we thought of the other R-word: Responsibilities? What if we spoke of duties and obligations?

Read more at Public Discourse.