The New Absolutes

Sunday Sermons

Mark Dunagan
06/12/05 - Sunday Morning

The New Absolutes

Today we seem surrounded by such expressions as, “That may be true for you, but it isn’t true for me”. “You don’t have the right to impose your morality on anyone else”. “You people who think you have the only truth and the only morality are intolerant and just as bad as the Taliban”. In our modern culture Christians are often finding that others will cut them off in mid-conversation while invoking the doctrine of relativism.

Real verses a Sham Tolerance

We hear a lot about tolerance today, but our modern culture often does not even understand the meaning of tolerance. First of all, tolerance demands disagreement, which itself demands a conversation or willingness to discuss or debate an issue. More and more I am finding that unbelievers in our society are not even willing to discuss an issue or at least allow the other side to be presented. Recently “on May 5-7 the Kansas State of Board of Education had three days of testimony about whether schools, along with teaching evolution, should also inform students of the scientific evidence against Darwinism; in other words, whether schools should ‘teach and debate’. Darwinians boycotted the hearings, insisting that there is no debate” (World Magazine, May 21, 2005, p. 18). Instead of being willing to debate or discuss this issue, the Kansas Citizens for Science had the following response on the group’s discussion board in February: “Notify the national and local media about what’s going on and portray them in the harshest light possible, as political opportunists, evangelical activists, ignoramuses, breakers of rulers, unprincipled bullies…”. Yet, as I read the Bible I find Christians being willing to debate and discuss (Acts 17:2-3; 15:2; Jude 3; Acts 17:11). Christians are often portrayed as being “intolerant”, but the truth of the matter is that Christians are often far more willing to meet, discuss and debate an issue than self-proclaimed “tolerant” and “open-minded people”. Yet we need to remember that the tactic of shouting down the opposition or stirring up public opinion against God’s people has often been a tactic used by unscrupulous individuals who are more interested in power and prestige than in truth (Acts 14:19 “having won over the crowds”; 16:22; 17:8 “They stirred up the crowd”; 17:13 “They came there as well, agitating and stirring up the crowds”; 1 Peter 2:12 “So that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers”).

Tolerance is not the same thing as Acceptance

Often when our culture lectures us about being more “tolerant” what they are really saying is that we need to accept what they are doing and remain quiet. Actually the word “tolerance” implies disagreement—otherwise there is nothing to tolerate. No one “tolerates” what he or she believes in, just like no one “tolerates” what they love or like to do. “Tolerance” can only exist if objective truth exists, that is, am I tolerating someone’s point of view but I do not agree with it because that point of view is wrong.

No one is a real “relativist”

In the book entitled The Truth About Tolerance, the authors Brad Stetson and Joseph Conti make the observation that, “Relativism is bankrupt as a moral philosophy, and no one is actually a real relativist, including the contemporary secular liberal. Secularists today make a whole host of moral judgments, and they do so unhesitatingly. The relativism of the secular liberalism is only relativist when it is resisting traditional Judeo-Christian morality”. Just read the letters to the editor in The Oregonian in which one will see one self proclaimed secular thinker and relativist after another lay down absolute convictions and absolute condemnation upon those with whom they disagree. “They invoke relativism when arguing against Christians and other cultural conservatives. But they treat their own beliefs and moral principles as objective, absolute, and universal truths” (World Magazine p. 28). This is reality is clearly seen when schools are unwilling to even have The Theory of Evolution questioned or to have Evolution and Creation taught side by side and let the students decide. It is interesting to note that the more one believes in absolute truth the more open they are to a public debate of the issues because they know they have the truth on their side, and the more one becomes a “relativist” the less willing are they to have both sides presented or even to have the subject questioned.

The New Commandments

William Watkins in his book The New Absolutes (Bethany House 1996). He identifies core convictions that govern today’s secularists:

· Religion interferes with freedom and must be banished from the public square.

· Human life is valuable only as long as it is wanted.

· Marriage is a human contract made between any two people, and can be terminated for any reason.

· Family is any grouping to two or more people.

· Sex is permissible regardless of marital status.

· All forms of sexual are moral as long as they occur between consenting adults.

· Only viewpoints deemed politically correct should be tolerated and encouraged to prevail.

The self-righteous unbeliever

“And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt” (Luke 18:9). Sadly, many people assume that only a professed “Christian” could be guilty of being self-righteous, yet the example that Jesus offers was not a Christian, in fact, when this parable was uttered Christians did not even exist as yet. Yes, Christians can be guilty of being self-righteous as were some Pharisees among the Jews, but Muslims, Buddhists, and even people who deny any kind of spiritual reality can be self-righteous as well. Plenty of unbelievers feel that they are superior to others because of a certain level of education, a certain point of view, a certain upbringing, social or economic status, and all of this often generates a level of self-righteousness that not only moves them to view others with contempt (like Christians), but equally prevents them from becoming a Christian (1 Corinthians 1:26). “The point is, secularists tend to hold to these principles with both zeal and self-righteousness. Secularists would have no problem carving them in granite and inscribing them on monuments set up in courthouses” (World Magazine p. 28). Which means that many people who are opposed to a list of divine ordinances being engraved or displayed in a public place would have no problem with having a list of “moral absolutes” that they agree with.

What we are up against

“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18); “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33); “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you” (1 Peter 4:14). Living in a land of freedom and plenty Christians can tend to view with skepticism the above passages. Our attitude might be, “Yes, I know that Christians were persecuted in the First Century but the world has changed and people are more reasonable and loving in our time”. In addition, we feel that we are nice, having a charming personality, and even if neighbors or coworkers do not see eye to eye with us, they will still like us because after all we are likable. In a similar manner, Lot might have thought the same thing. Earlier in the book of Genesis we learn that Lot had settled near the city of Sodom (Genesis 13:12). Later we him in actually settled in the city itself, and when the Lot’s values and the values of the people eventually collided (as they typically due), Lot found that not only was his point of view not respected (Genesis 19:5-9), but he was not respected either. “Richard Dawkins has written that anyone who denies evolution is either ‘ignorant, stupid, insane (or wicked—but I’d rather not consider that) (New York Times, April 9, 1989, sec. 7, p. 34). It isn’t a big step from calling someone wicked to taking forceful measures to put an end to their wickedness. John Maddox, the editor of Nature, has written in his journal that ‘it may not be long before the practice of religion must be regarded as anti-science’ (Defending Science against Anti-Science, Nature, 368, p. 185). In his recent book Darwin’s Dangerous Ideas, philosopher Daniel Dennett compares religious believers—90 percent of the population to wild animals who may have to be caged, and he says that parents should be prevented (presumably by coercion) from misinforming their children about the truth of evolution, which is so evident to him (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, pp. 515-516)”(Darwin’s Black Box, Michael J. Behe, p. 250).

Christina Hoff Sommers says in her book, The War Against Boys, “It’s a bad time to be a boy in America”. Sommers is was alarmed over the comments made by the director of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital concerning the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado. The director said, “The boys in Littleton are the tip of th iceberg. And the iceberg isall boys”.

Pressing

Christians are called upon to give an answer or reason for the hope that they cherish (1 Peter 3:15). What we need to remember is that we need to press vocal unbelievers for the foundation behind what they believe or do not believe in. “Christians should not let their opponents get away with playing the relativism card. After uncovering the secularists’ own absolutes, Christians could then ask them, ‘What is the basis for your beliefs?’ Once the ground is shifted to a discussion of foundational worldviews, the Bible emerges as a solid rock” (World Magazine p. 28). (Matthew 7:24-29).

Colossians 2:8

“See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ”.

Observe the phrase “empty deception”, that is, something that is a hollow sham having no true content. “High sounding nonsense” (Phi). What this reveals is that the motivation behind many human philosophies is self-glorification. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, referred to by Will Durant as the most influential of the 18^th century philosophers gave the following appraisal of philosophers. “I consulted the philosophers. I found even in their so-called skepticism to know everything; proving nothing, scoffing at one another. Braggarts in attack, weaklings in defense. Weigh their arguments, they are all destructive; count their voices, each speaks of himself alone. There is no one of them who, if he chanced to discover the difference between falsehood and truths, would prefer his own lie to the truth which another had discovered. Where is the philosopher who would not deceive the whole world for his own glory?” (Colossians, Coffman, p. 183).

Mark Dunagan/Beaverton Church Of Christ/503-644-9017