Leviticus in The New York Times: What’s the Real Story Here?
Even in this secular age, the conscience of Western civilization continues to be haunted and shaped by the Bible. The inherited moral tradition of the West was explicitly formed by the Bible — both the Old and New Testaments — and the moral power of the Bible continues as the main source of the principles, intuitions, impulses, and vocabulary of modern times. But if European and American cultures have been morally shaped by the Bible, these same cultures are now haunted by the Bible. The Bible haunts all the modern efforts to push a vast revolution in morality — specifically sexual morality. The main restraint on the sexual revolution has been the abiding power of Judeo-Christian moral instincts drawn from Scripture. The intellectual elites declare themselves liberated from the Bible, and express frustration at the millions of their fellow citizens who remain under the Bible’s explicit or implicit sway. And yet, those same elites are not so distant from the Bible as they may insist.