Summary
The Great Morality Shift
Between the 15th and 18th centuries, the English language underwent what linguists call the Great Vowel Shift—a slow, centuries-long change in pronunciation driven by the mingling of cultures after the Black Death, the human desire to sound fashionable, and the standardizing pressure of the printing press. The result is the English we speak today. One commentator put it bluntly: "we made a real mess of it." What once was strange became normal simply because enough people drifted in the same direction over enough time.
Something similar, but far more serious, has been happening in human morality. Call it the Great Morality Shift. It did not begin yesterday; it began in Eden, when Adam and Eve traded perfect communion with God for the fruit, and it has been creeping forward ever since. The same forces are at work: the mingling of God's people with the surrounding culture, the desire to fit in with "the cool kids," and the pressure to conform to whatever the wider world has formatted as acceptable. This is precisely why God warned Israel in Deuteronomy 7:1-4 not to intermarry with the nations of Canaan—because mixing with them would draw their hearts away to other gods.
The danger is that the longer a sin is tolerated, the more it begins to feel like the norm. And once something feels normal, we stop questioning whether it is right. But the world's norm is not God's norm. As The Norm 3-2-25 makes plain: there are no acceptable sins. Everything outside of God's holiness is unacceptable to him, no matter how widely accepted it has become among us.
Anxiety as an "Acceptable Sin"
Anxiety is a prime example. It is so common that we almost never name it as sin; we call it part of the human condition and trade worries with one another as though sharing them were a virtue. Anxiety is a feeling of unease about what is to come—never about yesterday's storm, always about tomorrow's. And that is precisely its spiritual problem: it pulls our eyes off of God, in whose hands the future rests, and fixes them on outcomes we cannot control. Yet Jesus tells his disciples plainly, "do not worry" Matthew 6:25-34, and Paul urges, "Rejoice in the Lord always… do not be anxious about anything" Philippians 4:4-7.
"Here Is Your God"
To a people surrounded by enemies—Assyrians, Babylonians, Philistines—God spoke through Isaiah a word meant to reset their gaze: "Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, 'Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God…he will come and save you'" Isaiah 35:3-4. Who can be weak when God is God? Who can worry when God is God? The leaders of Israel were charged to remind the people who they were in him—not feeble, but strong; not abandoned, but redeemed.
That promise finds its strangest and deepest fulfillment at the cross. The Lion of Judah appears as a Lamb who has been slain Revelation 5:5-6. To the disciples watching Jesus die, he did not look mighty, and they hid in fear of what was to come. But death did not have the last word. Christ laid down his life of his own accord John 10:17-18, bore our sin—including the sin of every wrung-handed hour of worry—and rose victorious on Easter morning.
A Different Norm
This is why the baptized Christian is called to a different norm. The world's norm of fear, hurry, and anxious self-protection is not yours. You have been claimed in the waters of Baptism, purchased by the blood of Christ, and freed to live in his triumph rather than under your fears. He has lifted the burden of anxiety from your shoulders and placed it on his own. Cling to Jesus. Keep your eyes on who he is and what he has done. Here is your God—and the norm he has set for you is eternal life in his presence.
Video citations
- "The Norm" 3-2-25 — I would call me a conversation with a lovely young lady and she shared with me a major, major controversy. And this is a controversy that has affected every single one of us that speaks the English…