When I was young, an old Catholic priest at a church I attended refused to to follow the Pope’s new rule to change from saying the mass in Latin to saying it in English. I don’t know why the priest refused. The church removed him.
Years later I talked with an academic who refused to change his course handouts to slides like the other instructors. The university squeezed him out.
My mother refused for years to buy a microwave oven. Finally, she acquired one, tried it, and thereafter used it every day of her life.
Many people refuse to change with the times. These include people who vote or rail against allowing same-sex couples to marry. Then there are the people in the U.S. who fight tooth and nail against the government assuring everyone of at least minimal health care.
What holds some people back? Fear plays a role. Nostalgia for the good old days also can play a role (although those days were not particularly good, especially for individuals in traditionally oppressed groups).
Being open to experience can help a person keep up with the times. Being willing to take a chance also helps.
I wonder what parts of the past I am clinging to, without good reason.
You could ask yourself a similar question.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts—it’s a really thought-provoking post. I agree that change is an essential part of life, and it can be difficult for many people to adapt to new circumstances. Like you mentioned, fear and nostalgia can often play a significant role in why people oppose change. But I also think deeper beliefs—whether tied to personal preferences or moral convictions—play an equally important role in how people navigate change.
When it comes to preferences, it’s true that these often change over time. Like your story of the old priest, the academic, and even your mother’s eventual embrace of the microwave, we can sometimes surprise ourselves by adapting and discovering new ways of doing things that we’d previously resisted.
However, when it comes to morals, I think the situation is a bit different. Morals go deeper than preferences. They’re tied to beliefs about what is right, wrong, or meaningful, and they shape how we live and interact with others. Yet, I’ve found that if someone removes the foundation or source of their moral framework—such as God or faith—their moral outlook can begin to shift, not always for the better. Without a grounding in something unchanging, like God, people’s understanding of morality can start to fluctuate, swaying with cultural trends, personal feelings, or societal pressures.
Your post reminds me of something the Bible talks about: how cultural norms and morality can shift over time—sometimes for the better, but often in ways that are deeply troubling. There are stories in Scripture that highlight how entire societies can normalize behaviors that are morally corrupt, destructive, or harmful when they reject God’s guidance.
Take, for example, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. The people of those cities had become so entrenched in wickedness that behaviors we would find intolerable today were not just accepted but celebrated and even enforced. Another example is the story of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19—a distressing account of what can happen when morality breaks down entirely and individuals and societies act without God as their guide. In these stories, we see behaviors that utterly defy God’s moral law and destroy the dignity of human beings created in His image.
What’s striking about these stories is their relevance to today. They show how, when God is removed from the picture, people often try to redefine morality in ways that fit their desires or align with the pressures of their culture. Over time, behaviors that were once considered unthinkable or abhorrent can become normalized and even celebrated by the majority. Sound familiar? We’re seeing some of this happening in various ways in the modern world.
But just because something becomes “normal” or widely accepted by a culture doesn’t make it morally right. Both history and Scripture teach us that morality isn’t supposed to shift with trends or personal convenience. True morality has to be anchored in something eternal and unchanging—in my view, that’s God. When we remove God from our moral framework, we’re often left with a distorted, self-serving version of morality, which can have devastating consequences for individuals and society as a whole.
One thing I’ve noticed is that when people open their hearts to God, He reshapes not only their preferences but also their perspective on what is right and wrong. God provides clarity, wisdom, and purpose that challenge us to live in a way that is not just aligned with personal gain or cultural popularity but with His eternal truth. His guidance leads us to what truly fosters dignity, flourishing, and peace—not just for ourselves but for others too.
So while I agree that change can be positive, I think we have to be thoughtful about the source of our moral compass as we adapt. Are we aligning ourselves with God’s truth, which is unchanging and life-giving? Or are we simply conforming to whatever feels convenient or culturally acceptable? That is a crucial question we must each ask ourselves—and our society at large.
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