One of the greatest gifts God has given to humanity is the gift of a conscience. Previous generations of preachers and teachers tended to focus far more on this than we do. They called the conscience ‘God’s deputy’ and ‘God’s spy in our hearts’.
It is a gift of God’s common grace. This means it is something all humans have. Our conscience is the inner voice we hear when we step outside the boundaries of what is right. Our conscience rarely praises us. It is more likely to accuse us.
How does this apply to politics? Our present day is witnessing what happens when someone reaches the top and does so at the expense of the conscience. Over the past few months, we’ve witnessed the sorry saga of Partygate, where the sinful tendencies of our leaders have been evidenced. While people stuck to rules, those in Number 10 did not.
The idol of autonomy in the West
If I asked you to name one of the great cultural idols of the secular Western world, what would you …