It tells me that while you don’t like where I put my line, you clearly have a line. You’re not as tolerant as you might think. You have a value system that determines what is right and what is wrong. Because you have just told me that I’m wrong for thinking the way I do.
Nobody actually believes the idea that truth is relative, that my body of truth that works for me is OK and your body of truth that works for you is OK.
Because what happens when they conflict? What happens if my body of truth says that it’s OK to steal your iPad? How does that test your tolerance? All of a sudden we’re pretty big on “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” We’re not advocating “conversations” and talking of a God who is “less black and white and more shades of gray,” at least when it comes to my truth that says it’s OK to steal your iPad.
Do you see where I’m going?
You may think you are the most progressive, nonjudgmental, hip, nonlegalistic, cool Christian out there, but you have a line somewhere. The question is, where do you draw it and on what basis? If I say that I take my code of right and wrong from the Bible, that may sound a bit archaic or old-fashioned.
Fine. So where do you get yours? Is it the consensus of the prevailing culture? That’s fine, but here is the problem with a majority-opinion type of value system. It depends on the goodness, the virtue, the character, of the culture. And you don’t have to look far into history to see cultures, many, whose values systems would make us recoil in horror.
For most of American history, the majority considered black people to be less than human. It considered them, at times, three-fifths human, worthy of buying and selling like property, and, for a long time, not worthy of voting, holding office or even sitting at the same lunch counter as whites.
If, during that time, you allowed culture to determine your value system (as many Christians sadly did), you’d think it was OK to treat your fellow man in this subhuman way. So you see the futility of drawing the line where culture determines the lines should be drawn?
