Vaughan Roberts, in ‘Together in Faith and Love?‘:-

The difference between the moral instincts of contemporary society and the traditional teaching of the Church flows from two different worldviews, both of which could be called gospels, because each claims to present good news which offers an alternative path to freedom and fulfilment. The gospel of ‘expressive individualism’, to use the sociologist Charles Taylor’s term, prizes authenticity as its core value. Jonathan Grant has expressed it well:

‘Modern authenticity encourages us to create our own beliefs and morality, the only rule being that they must resonate with who we feel we really are. The worst thing we can do is to conform to some moral code that is imposed on us from outside – by society, our parents, the church, or whoever else. It is deemed to be self-evident that any such imposition would undermine our unique identity.’

This way of thinking is in the cultural air we breathe: in advertising slogans (‘Be whatever you want to be’ –PlayStation), movies (it’s the moral to almost every fairy story, once it has received the Disney treatment) and in the lyrics of our favourite songs (‘Look out ‘cos here I come. And I am marching to the beat I drum… This is brave, this is bold, this is who I am meant to be. This is me’ – The Greatest Showman).

It all sounds intoxicating, and we sing along with the songs with gusto, but behind the message is a profound individualism, which resists any restrictions to the self’s right to self-define and to live accordingly, including those previously understood to be imposed by biology and nature.