The latest sermon from HuffPost’s pulpit insists that “vertical morality” explains why MAGA Christians seem so unchristian. The author, in her infinite wisdom, claims that obedience to God makes people cruel, authoritarian, and conveniently Republican. In other words, faith with a backbone is now a threat to democracy.
Let me start by asking a rather important question: if morality doesn’t descend from above, where exactly does it come from? From X polls? From whatever influencer cries loudest on TikTok? The article paints “vertical morality” as a primitive hangover from patriarchy — a moral monarchy that demands obedience instead of empathy. But it misses the point entirely. The vertical aspect is what gives morality its weight. Remove it, and compassion disappears; what remains is chaos. (RELATED: The Religious Foundations of Freedom and Democracy)
For centuries, vertical morality — the belief that right and wrong flow from a higher authority — has kept civilizations from devouring themselves.
For centuries, vertical morality — the belief that right and wrong flow from a higher authority — has kept civilizations from devouring themselves. The Ten Commandments weren’t crowdsourced. They were carved in stone to remind mankind that the truth doesn’t bend with opinion. Horizontal morality, as HuffPost calls it, is morality by mood ring. It shifts with feelings, fads, and hashtags. Today’s empathy is tomorrow’s outrage.
The writer claims that vertical morality makes people “authoritarian.” But all morality, to some extent, is authoritarian — it says no. No, you can’t kill. No, you can’t steal. No, you can’t pretend biology is bigotry. A moral law that never forbids anything isn’t moral at all; it’s a lifestyle brand. The difference between moral authority and tyranny is purpose. A tyrant’s “no” serves power. A moral “no” serves principle. When a society loses the ability to make that distinction, everything becomes relative — murder becomes “misguided,” deceit becomes “strategic,” and virtue becomes whatever flatters the crowd.
Her examples are predictable. The “Old Testament God” is too strict. Conservative Christians are too harsh. Trump voters are too judgmental. Yet she forgets that Christ himself said He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Love thy neighbor, yes — but not by turning sin into a sacrament. (RELATED: Christianity at the Crossroads)
The author seems bewildered that believers still believe. That men and women might take divine authority seriously strikes her as some medieval neurosis. It’s not neurosis but order. Horizontal morality says, “Do what feels kind.” Vertical morality says, “Do what is right.” Sometimes the two align. Often they don’t.
Horizontal morality forgives everything because it fears offending anyone. It prizes emotion over endurance, empathy over truth. It’s the creed of the modern age — sentimental, self-referential, and endlessly flexible. It’s why churches host drag shows in the name of inclusion, why teachers blur the difference between boys and girls to avoid “hurt feelings,” and why politicians preach compassion while letting cities decay. Horizontal morality soothes the conscience but never strengthens the soul.
Vertical morality, by contrast, demands something harder — obedience to a standard higher than oneself. It recognises that real love sometimes means refusal, that mercy without measure becomes moral mush. It’s the kind of morality that built cathedrals, inspired sacrifice, and restrained power. And in a culture drunk on self-expression, such a stance sounds almost subversive.
Take her example of Abraham and Isaac. She calls the story immoral. Yet that story isn’t about murder. In truth, it’s about trust. It teaches that faith sometimes runs counter to reason — that the moral life demands devotion to something beyond comfort. To the modern mind, obedience is oppression. But to the faithful, it’s discipline, a humility that tempers ego and centers one’s conscience.
Vertical morality also explains why men — real men — are so often drawn to faith. It gives them direction, not permission. It requires some form of self-sacrifice. It’s why fathers work late, soldiers die young, and priests take vows. Without a vertical axis, morality becomes a circle — endless, self-pleasing, spinning on emotion until everyone gets dizzy.
The article insists that vertical morality breeds cruelty. That’s rich coming from an age that cancels, mocks, celebrates assassinations, and mutilates in the name of kindness. Today’s “horizontal” morality exalts compassion until it demands conformity. Disagree, and you’re damned — not by God, but by groupthink. The crowd that sneers at commandments has written ten thousand of its own. Don’t offend. Don’t misgender. Don’t think differently. The new orthodoxy just swapped the cross for the algorithm. (RELATED: America’s New Theology of Violence)
The truth is, “vertical morality” makes absolute sense because morality must be absolute to mean anything. A line that bends on command isn’t a line but a suggestion. The vertical keeps us aligned with something higher than ourselves, something unshakable. The horizontal, left unchecked, turns morality into moral relativism — and relativism always ends in ruin.
Yes, obedience can be dangerous — but only when the authority above is false. The problem isn’t that people obey God; it’s that too many obey their own appetites. Look around: the modern world worships pleasure, power, and self-esteem. Its gods wear mirrors for faces. And yet we wonder why the West feels unmoored, why millions of Americans drift without meaning, why families fracture, and faith fades.
The vertical gives shape to the soul. It demands respect, restraint, reverence — three words that send the modern activist into hives.
Vertical morality may be unfashionable, but so are foundations — until the storm comes. The moral life, like any structure, needs a pillar. Not every “thou shalt not” is oppression. Sometimes it’s a safeguard. Sometimes it’s the only thing standing between civilization and collapse.
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