Are You a Moral Relativist? Then You are Not a Christian

1. Moral relativism is the greatest evil of our day, as the new Pope Benedict has argued. It leads to massive confusion, despair, suicide, and countless power struggles. It is like a colorless, odorless gas which has escaped into the atmosphere of our culture, which we have breathed in without knowing it. To pick just one example, our legal system has become overrun with power struggles over such things as whether evolution or creation, or both, can be taught in public schools. The ultimate legal “issue behind the issue” in these fierce debates, as every lawyer knows, is who gets to decide. The same can be said for abortion, euthanasia, etc.

2. No one can believe such things as “my ideas [about ultimate issues of faith] are just as good as your ideas,” “no one can tell me what to believe,” “all religious are just different paths to the same god,” and the like, and believe at the same time in the Christ who said: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) No one can believe in moral relativism and believe that “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) Many other scriptures could be piled upon these.

3. The organized Christian church should speak out with one voice against this evil, and even call it what it is, a heresy. From time to time through history, the Church has been called upon to draw the lines that distinguish the true Gospel from various false teachings that assail it. This is one such false teaching, yet it has been adopted, albeit perhaps unconsciously, by many who claim to name the name of Christ in our society.

The Church needs to speak clearly and with one voice, and proclaim to all such people: If this is what you truly believe, then whatever else you may be, you are not a Christian.

[The above are some thoughts on Moral Relativism, arising out of reading the chapter in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion on the doctrine of the Church, and the necessity for the people of God to hear the preaching of the Word as a congregation in order to avoid “lone ranger” Christians who by failing to attend such preaching fall into all kinds of error.]