Cultural Morality?

Cultural Morality?
Phil Sanders, Ph.D.

    More than twenty years ago, Allan Bloom observed in his book, The Closing of the American Mind, that “there is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative…. The students, of course, cannot defend their opinion. It is something with which they have been indoctrinated” (25).
    Bloom was not merely speaking about whether one can know any absolute truths (epistemological relativism) but also whether there are any absolute moral truths (moral relativism). Moral relativism argues that there is no absolute and no objective right and wrong. Relativists believe moral rules are merely personal preferences and arise as a result of one’s cultural, ethnic, or sexual orientation.
    Moral relativism has become the norm on television, in academia, and among politicians. For instance, how long has it been since anyone has spoken out on television against two unmarried people sleeping with each other? How long has it been since state universities spoke out against same-sex relationships? They wouldn’t dare today. How about those politicians who say they are personally against abortion but support the mother’s right to choose? Isn’t this morally confusing to say “I think it’s wrong for me to take the life of an innocent unborn; but I won’t oppose your taking an innocent life”? When such doublespeak becomes the accepted norm, our younger generations fall into confused amorality.
    In the 1960’s, Joseph Fletcher argued that it was sometimes right to do wrong. Philosophers like John Warwick Montgomery and pulpits around the nation condemned his “situation ethics”; but the notion of situational morality did not die. Fletcher believed love, or the “agape ethic,” was superior to the “law ethic,” so that things done out of love fulfilled God’s ethic even if they violated God’s law. This notion of love as a justification for our behaviors has rapidly spread throughout American society.
To many, same-sex love overrules God’s edicts condemning homosexuality (Rom. 1:24-32; 1 Cor. 6:9-10). Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Mollenkott argued in their book, Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, that the New Testament passages dealing with homosexuality did not argue against a committed, loving relationship.  They said,
The Bible clearly condemns certain kinds of homosexual practice (. . . gang rape, idolatry, and lustful promiscuity).  However, it appears to be silent on certain other aspects of homosexuality--both the ‘homosexual orientation’ and ‘a committed love-relationship’ analogous to heterosexual monogamy (226).
This assertion is fantasy. The Scriptures speak to all homosexual behavior; whether with love or without, homosexual behavior is still condemned in Scripture.
    For moral relativists, abortion is preferable to raising an unwanted child. They believe it is better to end a child’s life than to have him grow up unloved or disadvantaged. Of course, they rarely consider how they may feel about that unwanted child in later days. Pro-choice people rarely speak of the long-term emotional trauma many mothers of aborted babies face.
    God, however, hates the taking of an innocent life (Prov. 6:16-19); and that is what abortion is. Abortion never shows love to the unborn child. It is almost as if no one considers that an unwanted child could become wanted or that adoption to a loving family is a possibility.
    It never occurred to those who followed Fletcher’s thinking that law was a means to define love. They continually characterized law as a lower ethic, cold, mean-spirited, intolerant, exclusive, and judgmental. They ignored the goodness and protective nature of the law.
    Paul argued that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully (1 Tim. 1:8). The law was designed to protect the innocent from the evil and ungodly sinners. Moses said, “And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day” (Deut. 6:24 ESV).
    Any husband knows that he must learn how to love his wife. He may have the deepest of affections in his heart for her; but unless he is sensitive to what she requires, his affection will, nevertheless, appear brutish and cruel. Knowing another person’s will teaches us how to please and love that person. One loves his neighbor by fulfilling the law; “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:8-10). The separation of an “agape ethic” from a “law ethic” is myth.
    The law teaches one how to love God and one’s neighbor. Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words” (John 14:23-24).
    Moral relativists often think they are taking the higher moral ground by not judging or excluding anyone. They speak in relative terms but practice judging and excluding in absolute terms. Their claim does not match their practice. While they practice inclusiveness with the immoral person, they slander and exclude anyone who disagrees with their inclusiveness.
    Moral relativists often claim that the belief in absolute moral truth is mean-spirited, intolerant, exclusivist, and judgmental. Obviously, an objective view of morality will hold some things to be wrong; but the relativist contradicts himself because he also holds some things to be wrong. He believes that anyone who says there is objective moral truth is wrong. This conclusion makes the relativist judgmental and, possibly, intolerant. If the relativist believes the absolutist to be wrong, he is just as exclusive as anyone else.
    Robert Williams displays the irreverent mindset of the moral relativist when he argues:
The point is not really whether or not some passage in the Bible condemns homosexual acts; the point is that you cannot allow your moral and ethical decisions to be determined by the literature of a people whose culture and history are so far removed from your own.  You must dare to be iconoclastic enough to say, “So what if the Bible does say it?  Who cares?” (Just As I Am 128).
Williams does not realize that he is imposing his irreverent and amoral views on those who disagree with him. He further ignores the dominating influence of the literature of the Bible in America from its inception.
    The Bible is unlike any other book. It shows its timeless transcendence of culture and geography. By God’s design, it appeals and applies to every culture in every nation in every century. Jesus sent his apostles out with the gospel to all nations for all time (Mt. 28:19-20). Jesus tasted death for all people (Heb. 2:9). Jesus is indeed Lord of all flesh (Jn. 17:3). The God of heaven commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30-31).
    The moral relativists may argue that moral norms arise from culture and ethnic origin, but all men find their origin in God. Differences in culture and norms do not make the Lord any less the Lord of all. Nor does the relativists’ claim make the Bible any less binding upon all people in all places for all time. Jesus’ words will not pass away (Mt. 24:35), and the faith was once for all time delivered to the saints (Jude 3). God’s morality does not change, nor can any person or group of people change it. God’s morality found in his Word is settled in heaven (Ps. 119:89). It is not going anywhere. On the last day it will judge us (Jn. 12:48; Rev. 20:11-15). For this reason, we must pay even more attention to what we have heard from God (Heb. 2:1).