Tag Archives: Relativism

News

Woman offended by seeing-eye dog ejects blind man from bus

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Note: My opinion is that the woman in the story is probably a Muslim because Muslims have an aversion to dogs, but the news article is not conclusive on this point.

ECM likes dogs, while I like birds. He sent me this story from the Reading Post in the UK.

Excerpt:

A driver told a blind cancer sufferer to get off his bus when a woman and her children became hysterical at the sight of his guide dog.

George Herridge, 71, told how the mum flew into a rage and shouted at him in a foreign language. A passenger explained she wanted him to get off the bus during the incident on May 20.

ECM also sent me this story from the UK Telegraph, linked by David Thompson, about the death of initiative and outrage.

Excerpt:

Few people now dare to challenge just simple, inconsiderate behaviour in others – behaviour which flies well under the criminality radar but which manages to alienate and intimidate. It’s this which is the most worrying, though understandable, aspect to it all. There is a section of our society that remains awfully polite about such issues, and prefers to see such non-reaction as part of a British desire not to make a fuss or cause embarrassment. It’s a nice, quaint idea but it no longer plays: they simply don’t get the fact that now, it’s all about fear.

And alongside this fear is the sense that the order of things has become so inverted that one will be on shaky ground if one does indeed speak up. Most people now register some degree of outrage at being asked to desist, no matter how politely you do it. You are the rude troublemaker in their eyes. For some kind of order to be restored, back-up is crucial. And formal authority has more or less left the scene. You are on your own.

I actually blame secularism for eroding the objective morality that was, until recently, dominant in the West. The moral relativism that emerged as objective morality declined does not allow people to rationally oppose injustice. Instead, people just keep quiet. If moral relativism is true, you can’t make moral judgments against anyone.

News

Has the Episcopal church gone completely crazy?

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Story from the Associate Press via the American Spectator. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church called the evangelical notion that individuals can be right with God a “great Western heresy” that is behind many problems facing the church and the wider society.

Describing a United States church in crisis, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told delegates to the group’s triennial meeting July 8 in Anaheim, Calif., that the overarching connection to problems facing Episcopalians has to do with “the great Western heresy — that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”

“It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus,” Jefferts Schori, the first woman to be elected as a primate in the worldwide Anglican Communion three years ago, said. “That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being.”

…Jefferts Schori said “heretical and individualistic understanding” contributes to problems like neglect for the environment and the current worldwide economic recession.

I wonder if the Bishop has ever encountered this passage:

32“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.

33But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.

34“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

35 For I have come to turn
” ‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law –

36a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

37“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

That statement is also in Luke. So it originates in Q, the source of Matthew and Luke, and it is therefore very, very early, and very, very reliable. And it’s worse than that – you can find something similar in the earliest gospel, Mark. So it is pretty clear that what is required to be saved is the individual decision to acknowledge Jesus and follow Jesus.

Here’s one more story from OneNewsNow about the Episcopalian church.

Episcopalians are moving toward affirming an open role for homosexual clergy in their church despite pressure from fellow Anglicans not to do so.

Episcopal bishops voted at a national meeting yesterday for a statement that says “God has called and may call” homosexual men and women to ministry. Delegates to the meeting already approved a nearly identical statement. This latest version is likely to be approved by Friday.

Episcopalians caused an uproar in 2003 by consecrating the first openly homosexual bishop, Vicki Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. That decision has nearly split the world Anglican Communion, which includes Episcopalians.

To calm tensions, Episcopal leaders three years ago had urged restraint by dioceses considering homosexual candidates for bishop. No openly homosexual bishops have been consecrated since then.

And don’t forget my previous post about the Rev. Ragsdale, another Episcopalian, who thinks that abortion should be made into a sacrament. She is the new Dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Commentary

Is Rick Warren an orthodox Christian?

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In my view, Warren minimizes sin and judgment  in order to appeal to “seekers”. He doesn’t defend traditional marriage. He seems to think that Christianity is about doing nice things for people, and making everyone feel good, instead of telling them the truth.

Well, Neil Simpson’s latest round-up has an article about Warren’s latest blunder.

Neil writes:

Rick Warren doesn’t understand the concept of unequally yoked.  It isn’t just about not marrying unbelievers, it is about not partnering with them in spiritual enterprises.  We should share the Gospel with Muslims, not do “ministry” together.

The post he links to at Slice of Laodicea cites this Washington Times article:

The Rev. Rick Warren, one of America’s best-known evangelical Protestant pastors, pleaded with about 8,000 Muslim listeners on Saturday night to work together to solve the world’s greatest problems by cooperating in a series of interfaith projects.

“Muslims and Christians can work together for the common good without compromising my convictions or your convictions,” Mr. Warren said during an evening session of the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) at the Washington Convention Center.

“I am not interested in interfaith dialogue but interfaith projects,” said the pastor of the 24,000-member Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., who is widely known for his bestseller “The Purpose-Driven Life.”…

My advice: Never trust Christians who think that Christianity is just about helping the poor. That is a peripheral issue, which some Christians focus on in order to avoid debates about the main issues of Christianity. The main issues are “Does God Exist?” and “Who was Jesus?”. Why people follow these left-wing social justice mega-church pastors instead of solid Christian scholars is beyond me. Just another reason why Christians should be fiscal conservatives.