[Note: Our guest contributing author, Dr. Phil Cooke, is a media producer, consultant, and author. Phil’s expertise is in teaching creativity, communication, Hollywood, media, and culture through the lens of Christian faith and for equipping ministries to further the Gospel message. I’ve read most of Phil’s excellent books, with my favorite being One Big Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do.]
We seem to be overwhelmed these days with virtue signaling. From politicians, celebrities, athletes, and more, we rarely hear why something works or doesn’t work from a practical point of view. It’s always connected to morality.
Which is a big reason for our cultural polarization. If we disagree about the practical aspects of an issue, we can still be friends. But when everything has morality injected into it, the other side suddenly becomes a Nazi.
We’re living in a moment obsessed with virtue—and strangely starved for it at the same time. Everyone wants to be seen as moral. Everyone wants credit for caring. But when virtue is disconnected from a biblical foundation, it doesn’t mature into character; it mutates into performance. What we’re left with is virtue signaling—loud, aggressive, and ultimately hollow.
Biblical virtue begins with submission. It’s rooted in the uncomfortable idea that we don’t define good and evil—God does. That’s not popular in a culture built on self-expression and personal truth, but it’s essential. When virtue flows from Scripture, it’s anchored in something outside ourselves. It’s not about being seen; it’s about being faithful. It’s not curated for applause or social media clicks; it’s forged in obedience.
Remove that foundation, and virtue becomes a branding exercise. Morality turns into a set of slogans, hashtags, and carefully chosen outrage. It’s no longer about transformation; it’s about positioning.
The goal isn’t righteousness—it’s relevance. And relevance, as every media professional knows, has a very short shelf life.
Here’s the problem: when morality is untethered from God, it has no gravity. No weight. No staying power. It drifts with the cultural winds, endlessly redefining itself to fit the mood of the moment. What was celebrated yesterday is condemned today. What’s condemned today will be applauded tomorrow. That’s not moral progress—that’s confusion with better lighting.
The Bible doesn’t present virtue as fashionable; it presents it as costly. Humility doesn’t trend. Faithfulness doesn’t go viral. Repentance doesn’t test well with focus groups. But those are the virtues that actually change people—and cultures. They require something virtue signaling never will: repentance, sacrifice, and a willingness to be misunderstood.
When God is removed from the moral equation, virtue becomes shallow because it has no transcendent purpose. There’s no ultimate “why.” Justice becomes selective. Compassion becomes conditional. Truth becomes negotiable. And ironically, the loudest moral voices often end up being the most brittle—quick to shame, slow to forgive, and terrified of dissent.
The church has made its own mistakes here, no question. But the answer isn’t to abandon biblical morality—it’s to return to it with humility and courage. Our credibility won’t be restored by sounding more like the culture, but by living differently from it.
Real virtue isn’t announced. It’s embodied. And without God at the center, all the moral noise in the world is just that—noise. Empty. Echoing.
And gone as soon as the next trend arrives.
[This article is used by permission from the author. Please visit philcooke.com to read the original post.]
