Social commentators of all stripes generally agree: there is no God in the public square, nor is there every likely to be any time soon. For the square is buffeted by a string of “isms”, pragmatism, utilitarianism, consumerism, and an ethical relativism spawning values constantly being renegotiated in the service of individual self-interest and less and less society at large.
The only limit is law itself—statutes, cases and court decisions, now the predominant arbiter of “right” and “wrong” and only shared system of general ethics in the square, which consigns conventional moral values to an ever-swelling bin of relative choice. If it is legal, it is right; if not, it is wrong. Sacred or profane no longer relevant.
