Many people think that we are always progressing. There is a term that is over used which is "progressive" and this has been collaborated with the identity of some conservatives.
On the contrary, if we look at history society is in regression. What we see today is a rise of narcissistic hedonism and that it is degenerate.
In Culture and the death of God, literary critic Terry Eagleton identified one idol of the modern age: Marxism which offers an economic version of sin and salvation.
When evaluating this worldview, the first thing it sets up is an idol as a substitute for God. As Nancy Pearcy puts it, in her book Finding Truth, "God cannot be rejected without putting something else in His place."
Our culture has an idol, be it Marxism, environmentalism or nationalism, they all put something created in place of God. If you reject the biblical God, you will deity something within the created order. In the Old Testament, Ezekiel calls them idols of the heart (Ezek. 4:3). Today when we speak of the heart, we mean the emotions. But in Hebrew the word means your innermost self, including the will, mind, moral character, and spiritual commitment.
In the New Testament, the Greek word for heart likewise means the centre or core of a person's being.
Writing to the Philippian church, Paul describes people whose minds are "set on earthly things," whose "god is their belly" (Phil. 3:19). God is constantly reaching out to people with evidence of His existence through general revelation but humans are constantly suppressing those truths by creating idols.
What are the consequences of serving idols? In Paul's words, God "gives people up" to the consequences of their choices: Paul's answer starts with the inner life: " They became futile i their thinking." "God gave them up to a debased mind" (Rom. 1:21, 28).
Today the word debased has a moral connotation. But in the original Greek, the word meant counterfeit money. So a debased worldview is one of a counterfeit god.
Paul also says, "God gave them up to dishonourable passions (v. 26). The connection is captured by the word exchanged. They "exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images" of created things (Rom. 1:23, 25).
Despite the vast diversity of religions and philosophies, they all start by putting something created in the place of God. And now we see the consequences progressing in the culture which results in a regression from a biblical worldview from which it was founded. The family structure, marriage and all that was once considered sacred is now on the path to suicide.
What we see in society now is the decline from freedoms with limitations based on Godly morals to a society driven on pleasure and merciless in punishing those who don't abide with their views.
People must hold themselves to a moral order. What's happening now is we are becoming slaves to our lusts. The society has gone from following a moral law of God to a subjective lust-filled culture. It's flipped... They are trying to find freedom without a saviour.
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