Whose Values?

Someone said recently that we just need people to have the same values. I said, yes but there has to be agreement as to the source of those values. Who or what source, by whose authority to we agree?
Man's??? That cannot be. How could we possibly choose one man to represent every individual fairly and which values? Where would his/her values come from?

You see, what western people value is not what other cultures value. What Christians value is not what other religions value. I wrote my doctoral thesis on the social imagination. I asked respondents to describe their ideal society. My respondents though coming from western civilizational societies, had to have traveled extensively and lived in other countries outside of the 'West'. All the respondents described their ideal society as having liberating the individual allowing for the pursuit of happiness through wide personal freedom and including private property as the utmost important.

This comes from Judeo-Christian traditions and beliefs. Christianity promotes individual choice and mastery over the world, and pursuing happiness through relationship as freeing and that ownership is part of that.

Of course, other people from other cultures can adapt to that kind of thinking, value system. But, it has to be their decision. And it has to be understood that it is expected as part of the integration process. In this way, society though diverse in race and ethnicity remains unified.

In our walk of Christian faith, the same principles apply and play out in our lives: individual choice, mastery of the world 'self', pursuing happiness ' harmony' through relationship as freeing and owning relationship and thus our self ~ as in self control and in this way we can love our neighbor as ourself.

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator (Ro. 1:20-26).