to the Word of God as their guide. We should do the same.
Christian political activists coined "traditional values" to win public relations points, but it has not worked. "Traditional" is a word which evokes a negative reaction in modern America. America as a nation rejected tradition as an authoritative source of direction as early as 1960. Most Americans see "tradition" as a collection of old wives' tales, a mindless repetition of practices initiated by applying prejudice to ignorance. If our goal was to win some kind of cultural high ground by choosing the right words, we erred badly when we picked "tradition".
"Values" is not much better. The use of "values" to describe moral precepts began with the works of Max Weber, who studied the things which different individuals hold dear. As Weber's ideas wandered into American popular culture, Americans applied Relativism to the notion and changed morals into a matter of what each person feels is important. Morals were once absolute and universal, but values are relative and personal.
Secular America objects to Christian activism by charging that Christians want to force everyone to act as we think they should, Nazi-style. If God's laws were our invention, their charge would be correct. Making laws from our "values" is like saying, "We hold this way of living dear, and we expect everyone to live up to it whether they hold it dear or not." Insisting on an absolute standard is only justified if the standard is genuinely God's. To call what we stand for "values" plays into the hands of our opponents.
Our concern should be to use words which say what we mean. Do the words "traditional values" accurately declare what we mean? They do not come close. What we mean is something like this:
"Almighty God, our Creator, has set certain immutable laws of behavior in the universe. We violate those laws at our peril. Every man can believe as he chooses, but if our nation permits behavior outside of God's immutable laws, it will collapse. Therefore, our nation's laws should reflect God's immutable laws."
What "traditional values" says is, "Things worked better in the past, and we should adopt our ancestors' ways of looking at things if we want things to work better now." It's a nice thing to say, but it has no teeth, it is not necessarily the truth, and it is certainly not the Christian message.
If we are going to articulate our message, the noun should describe behavior which agrees with God's laws. Words like "virtue" or "integrity" carry more of an absolute sense than "values." The adjective should identify what it is that makes this behavior right, i.e. the source of the compelling authority, which we acknowledge as God Himself. Tradition has nothing to do with it, nor does it matter what we value. The determining factor is the sovereignty of God. Consequently, "godly" or "Christian" do well, and perhaps "holy". "Absolute" or "universal" are also good, but fail to identity God.
So, what we have been saying to America is "return to traditional values," but
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