It’s all relative these days. Men can be women and women can be men. Or they can switch back and forth minute by minute. People can decide what race they are. People can decide what age they are. Who are we to disagree or say that they’re wrong? That would be judging people, and the only thing that’s wrong is to judge. Or so the wisdom of today’s world says.
One example that’s getting a lot of press: in his new Netflix show, “Bill Nye Saves the World,” Nye dedicates an entire crude, blasphemous episode to promote the idea that gender is not a male/female distinction determined genetically by our chromosomes, but a broad spectrum that includes all kinds of sexuality His scientific backing? Because transgender people say so.
All of this is the result of a tidal wave of belief in subjective truth that’s been growing for years, and we’re starting to see the natural results that relativism causes.
What relative truth leads to:
- Doctrine is compromised for what “feels right” or what culture tells us to believe
- Jesus can be framed into whatever a person wants Him to be
- We can be “spiritual” on our own terms without the framework of the church
- Pressure from culture and peers affects what we believe about God, the Bible, science, and any number of other important issues
- Long understood terms like marriage are redefined
- Morality is (inconsistently) defined on an individual basis and many will refuse to take any moral stands
- Gender is made a choice – and a shifting one at that
The funny thing is, nobody actually believes in relative truth when push comes to shove. Ask Bill Nye about evolution or climate change and he’ll only give one answer. In fact, he thinks anyone who disagrees with him should be imprisoned. When discussing people who believe in the two genders, he insists that our feelings about the matter are our only foundation for our argument. (How’s that for irony and hypocrisy?) In saying that, he insists we’re wrong – meaning truth isn’t relative to everybody, just those who decide they’re a different gender.
The fact of the matter is, everybody has moral standards, regardless of what they say they believe about judging and individual preference. I hold the Bible as the ultimate moral standard. Bill Nye and his ilk believe that their ever-changing laws of tolerance are the ultimate standard. Any Christian parent, minister, or elder who doesn’t realize that there’s an all-out war being fought by these two sides is failing their child or fellow Christian. Sadly, there are plenty of Christian young people who have fallen to relativism because they have been pressured to endorse the world’s beliefs. I’ve heard from a few people like this, those raised in the church and should know better who now tell me that I’m hurting the church by standing by the Bible with regard to creation, sexuality, or various other culturally disputed topics.
This is why it’s important that Christian families don’t merely teach your children what to believe, but how to weigh what they believe and find truth. That’s why churches have to be willing and able to succinctly and truthfully answer the questions the world is putting before us. Basic apologetics are an absolute must in our churches today. By the time a Christian youth heads out on their own they need to be able to find answers to Bible questions and have a mentor figure to talk to when they have doubts or struggle understanding.
The world attempts to lure Christians (and especially children of Christian homes) with enormous peer pressure and does not make room for debate or consideration. Instead they merely shout down any dissenters and shame anyone who isn’t in-step with the ever-changing moral truths of the day. We absolutely have to be the ones who can point to God’s unchanging standard and prove why it must be followed. Any time we don’t we’re risking another loss to moral relativism, and with it another crack in our society’s decaying grasp of reality and reason.
By Jack Wilkie
