The other way around

Al Mohler comments on the recent ruling against Peter & Hazelmary Bull, a Christian couple who refused to allow unmarried or homosexual couples to share a single bed in their Cornwall hotel. He writes:

The late Maurice Cowling, one of Britain’s most significant intellectuals of the twentieth century, argued that when the public influence of Christianity wanes, the space is not then filled with anything truly secular. Instead, some new religion takes the place of Christianity. In this case, the new religion is the religion of sexual anarchy.

I think that there is much credible and concerning in this assertion, but Mohler also says this:

The real bomb embedded within Judge Rutherford’s ruling is this sentence: “Whatever may have been the position in past centuries it is no longer the case that our laws must, or should automatically reflect the Judaeo-Christian position.”

There can be no doubt that this logic is fast taking hold in legal circles, pointing to a severe constriction of the rights of Christians to live by their own convictions. At the same time, this decision serves as yet another sign of how swiftly the moral revolution is happening all around us. When Judge Rutherford said that the moral consensus is now “the other way around,” he wrote that revolution into law.

I accept that this is happening, and that it will severely threaten to constrict Christian attitude and action in the world. My question is this: to what extent ought we to be shocked by this? Have we been so privileged in the West as to reach the point at which we think we are entitled to have “the world” on our side? Is not this kind of opposition more the Biblical norm, however much we may pray for peace (1Tim 2.2)?

I cannot deny it is happening; I am not welcoming it, or suggesting that we fail to resist it; I appreciate the protections offered by centuries of Judaeo-Christian ethics at work in varying degrees in our society. But, am I entitled to expect anything else?

Are things really turning the other way around, or are they reverting to type?