Friday, November 06, 2009

We Live in a Culture Where It's Wrong to Say That Something is Wrong


Above: Me


I saw the title of this post earlier today and wanted to discuss (argue) it, when I realized I had much more to say than I would be able to in comment boxes.

I have so many problems with this statement: We Live in a Culture Where It's Wrong to Say That Something is Wrong.

We Christians look at it and go "yeah, that's right!!" Because we view it as a slam against moral relativism. We believe that morality isn't relative, that morality comes from the nature of God and can be defined in absolute terms.

We say this, because we believe we know what those absolute terms are. We are so confident in the Bible being infallible....and even more confident in our interpretation of the Bible being infallible.

So we fight back against this statement, and we think that we would rather live in a culture where it's right to say that something is wrong.

But we don't mean it.

We only mean that when it is us doing the declaring and judgment of whether something is right or wrong, not when it is our actions/opinions/beliefs being judged or questioned.

We scream against moral relativism, while simultaneously screaming against attempting to understand God in a different way from how we've always done it.

We say that you cannot question the immorality of gang rape--but at the same time demand it as our right to question the morality of two men living together in a lifelong, loving, monogamous relationship.

We balk at the idea of anyone questioning our positions of morality, while demanding that everyone else's positions of morality be altered to fit our own.

We get offended at questioning Christian doctrines or understandings...even minor and insignificant ones. While saying we are able to claim that the central being of another's religion doesn't exist...or that they are really a demon. And we become offended when someone takes offense...

We say there are things that can't be questioned: 
  • We can't question Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. 
  • We can't question scriptural authority or interpretation. 
  • We can't question the virgin birth
  • The garden of Eden
  • The doctrine of original sin
  • Existence of angels
  • Literal interpretations of hell
  • Literal interpretations of satan
  • Baptism
  • Communion
  • Prayer
  • scriptural authorship
  • and the list goes on
So when anyone says that one of our opinions on these things is wrong....we scream back that they're wrong for questioning it.

This is one of the many reasons why everyone knows that we're hypocrites.