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Relativism and
America’s Culture Wars
by James
R. Birrell, Ed.D.
Associate Professor of Teacher Education, BYU
James R. Birrell's
article on relativism seems flawed in places. My reading of history
leads me to conclude that several of the leading Founding Fathers
of the U.S. were deists, not 'Christian' per se [once God whatever
his/its character and purpose) created things, he pretty much leaves
them to work out things on their own].
Truth is NOT
an absolute in mortality, but relative [see the Prophet Joseph Smith's
definition of truth, Brigham Young's definition in his discourses,
and Volume II of Comprehensive History of the Church]. One can attend
a Gay Pride rally in support of securing the same legal protection
from bashings as any other citizen, while not supporting same-sex
marriage [I think President Hinckley is very clear about how we
treat homosexuals, while not supporting their behavior].
What isn't
relative about the Israelites crossing Jordan and killing off their
neighbors and stealing their land? Seems to me that not killing
and stealing are mentioned somewhere in the Decalogue. What isn't
relative about the Syrian noble Naaman participating in the rituals
of a false god when he returns home? The point is, we should not
pretend that many things in mortality are absolute when they are,
indeed, relative. We have living prophets through whom God reveals
His will for us at this time, and we would do best to heed them
until He reveals the next step. He has the eternal perspective,
ours is temporal and relative. Though it is relative, it is of a
much higher character that emanates from the fount of absolute
truth.
Jim Birrell’s Response
One of the benefits
of writing for Meridian is the opportunity for feedback. While I
do not always understand the nature of some of the feedback I receive,
I always enjoy seeing the ways my ideas and arguments are interpreted
among diverse readers. And I appreciate that most of the time, feedback-
especially disagreement with me, is offered in a kind tone and instructive
manner (though not always). At times I have tried to engage my critics
in meaningful dialogue, which sometimes is useful and sometimes
impossible. Nevertheless, I appreciate this opportunity to respond
to Mr. Phil Clifford’s editorial regarding my writings on
relativism.
First let me
review the main thesis of my series on relativism so that my response
to Mr. Clifford can be contextualized. Relativism is the notion
that human thought and virtue evolves along with the sensibilities
of man; God is not part of the equation. Such thinkers deny the
truth of God’s being and His sovereign role in promoting truth
and shaping lives. Instead, human rationality is the fount of truth,
which is relative to a given era (the meaning of secularism). Humanism-
the offspring of relativist thought, promotes the highest good for
humans- it is a religion of peace on earth and good will to all
mortals without the Christ; it is the humanist doctrine of fighting
poverty, promoting education, and pursuing justice, equality, rights,
welfare, healthcare and such. These aims acknowledge the goodness
of man, though not necessarily the place or power of God. Failing
to acknowledge God does not deny the reality of Him. Unaware of
the light within (Moroni 7:16), humanist and relativist thinkers
(among others) may be useful to God in the promotion of these temporal
matters, but they cannot attend to the advancement of the weightier
or eternal matters that elevate humanity toward or exalt them in
God. They may even fight against them.
Second, let
me again assert my intention in writing these articles on relativism.
I seek to illuminate the troubling ways that America is changing,
and to raise a voice of warning- along with others, about the ways
these changes are undermining our faith and families. Our children
are being raised today in a time that is similar to the days of
Noah. Paul called these “perilous times” (2 Timothy
3: 1). If I called you and told you to get home quickly because
your family was in peril, what would you do? Such vigilance is necessary
if we are to respond to the following concerns of President Packer,
who wrote:
I wish to
raise a voice of solemn and sober warning! We live in a day of
great opposition, not just in the United States but worldwide.
It grows by day and by night all across the world. Enemies from
without, reinforced by apostates from within, challenge the faith
of the rank and file members of the Church. It is not the programs
of the Church they challenge. They are, in fact, quite complimentary
of them. It is the doctrines they focus on. It is the doctrines
they attack…If our members are ignorant of the doctrines
we are in danger… (Things of the Soul, 1996, p.
67).
I write to encourage
each reader to assess the degree to which he or she is defined more
by the world than by the doctrines of Christ in matters of truth
and righteousness, and to inspire our greater involvement in shaping
America’s culture wars. With that said, I will now respond
to four points that Mr. Phil Clifford seems to be saying about my
ideas.
Deism and the Founders
In his
first point, Mr. Clifford is arguing that many of the Founders
were deists. In saying this, I think he may be refuting my argument
that the Founders were, overall, absolutists in their thinking about
the relationship between virtue and liberty, Christ and freedom.
Relativist and revisionist historians today like to discredit the
idea that the American Founding had any spiritual or Christian significance;
this strengthens the claim of the church/state separatists, and
further and intentionally erodes the Christian voice and values
in America’s culture wars.
About
Deism
Deism denies
the direct intervention in the natural order by God. It posits,
to borrow an old illustration, the idea that God is like a clockmaker.
God winds up the clock of the earth and it proceeds on its own without
any further involvement from Him. This idea, found as early as Nicolaus
of Oresmes (d. 1382), rose to prominence in Europe in the late 1600’s
and remained fairly popular into the 1800’s. The deist believes
in the reality of God, but sees no need to pray. God is an absentee
landlord. He doesn’t interfere in natural law or mans’
ways. Laws of nature will prevail and guide men and women accordingly.
Neither does God provide miracles. Reason and intellect, mediated
by experience, guide the deist. Whereas natural laws that govern
the universe are fixed, deist understandings of God can be quite
relative- evolutionary; and I suppose to them, even extraordinary.
This belief
system never really caught on amongst the colonists- the majority
of which were Christian of the Calvinist order. Many states at the
time of the Constitutional Convention did not allow confessed deists
to hold public office (Bowen, 1966), as deism was generally held
in low esteem. That is because roughly two-thirds of the colonists
held beliefs that aligned with Calvinist thinking (Boettner, 1972).
Calvinism is a theological system that is, in many ways, similar
to our own. It asserts that God created man in an ideal state- but
man fell into sin. Mankind, therefore, possesses a sinful nature
and is unable to please God by his own efforts- though he certainly
can choose to do good even though his nature is inclined toward
sin. To encourage moral conduct, laws were necessary to set up checks
and balances relating to both sin and power (Eidsmoe, 1987). The
challenge before the Great Convention in 1787 was to find ways to,
given the sinful nature of mankind, allocate power to government
sufficient to serve and restrain the masses without becoming a tyrant.
These ideas
were so accepted amongst the colonists that deism never was (or
will be) a dominant force in American life; how then, could deists
have truly and deeply influenced the American founding? Dr. M. E.
Bradford (1982) of the University of Dallas has written a series
of biographical sketches on the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional
Convention. I could list each delegate and their religious affiliation(s)
here, but suffice it to say that Bradford’s list includes
28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans,
2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, and 3 deists.
One religious preference is unknown to historians. At most, 5.5
percent of America’s Founders were deists- 3 of 55, though
many of these individuals may have embraced deist convictions at
some point in their lives.
The three delegates
Bradford identifies as deist- Hugh Williamson of North Carolina,
James Wilson and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania were raised in
strict Calvinist homes, and all three originally studied for the
ministry. Williamson preached in a Presbyterian Church, though he
did not accept all the doctrines of the faith- which was true of
many of the Founders. Following the death of his father, Wilson
left the seminary and studied law in America. He attended the Episcopalian
Church where his children were baptized, though he likely never
joined. Nevertheless, Wilson’s speeches at the Convention
highlighted his belief that law came from God and that man possessed
moral obligation to choose right over wrong and to honor supreme
law. Benjamin Franklin was a deist in his younger years, but it
appeared that time and experience altered his beliefs. While he
never joined any known Christian Church, Franklin declared at the
Great Convention that “God governs in the affairs of men.”
He also called for prayer among the delegates. If Franklin truly
was a deist, his declaration affirming an interactive God and his
call for prayer would have been hypocritical at best. For, according
to deists, God does not intervene. Prayer is pointless.
In sum, while
I am not certain of Mr. Clifford’s point in raising the issue,
I am certain that deism was not the guiding light of the Constitutional
Convention, at least where understanding and petitioning God were
concerned.
Three Remaining Points
In point
two, Mr. Clifford seems to be arguing that truth cannot
be an absolute in mortality, and, if I understand him, he refers
to the writings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to make his case
that mortal truth is relative (forgive me, Mr. Clifford, if I have
misunderstood your arguments). I reviewed the Discourses of Brigham
Young and Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith for any hint of
support for what I think are Mr. Clifford’s assertions. I
could find none. I would have to rely upon more information, including
specific quotes from these LDS leaders, and a better explanation
from Mr. Clifford before I could more fully and fairly consider
his argument that all truth in mortality is relative.
Point
three seems to reflect the meanings of the new tolerance
I wrote and warned about in Meridian last week. Mr. Clifford may
be saying that attendance at Gay Pride parades could be viewed as
evidence of commitment to President Hinckley’s comments that
we not mistreat gays. If that is Mr. Clifford’s point, I cannot
imagine President Hinckley deciding to ride in a Gay Pride parade
as a token of our institutional love and religious concern for gay
members of the Church- or to draw attention to any mistreatment
of gays in America; besides, it would be viewed as an endorsement
of the gay activist agenda. In weeks to come, I will discuss the
homosexual agenda and say more about this topic.
In what I perceived
to be his final point, Mr. Clifford is asking what
isn’t relative about Israel crossing over Jordan and killing
their neighbors and stealing their land, or Naaman participating
in the rituals of a false God? His point is that we should “not
pretend that many things in mortality are absolute when they are,
indeed, relative.” If Mr. Clifford is using my definition
of relative, he is saying that many things in life deny the truth
of God and exalt the rationality of man. Or he may be operating
under his own definition of the word, which likely means something
different to him. It is hard for me to know just what he is saying
without understanding his meaning of the term relative.
Mr. Clifford may be saying that many of our daily decisions are
not based upon morality and truth, but upon preference and opinion,
and are therefore relevant. For example, where one lives is relevant.
How one lives gets into moral absolutes.
He may be saying
that truth, as we know it, is relative, because our understanding
of truth is always changing. It is not the nature of truth that
is changing, but the amount and nature of truth we can comprehend.
Truth does not change; God is what He is. When we see Him differently,
it is our understanding that is evolving- not His nature. The truth
we possess is not relative, but- arguably, our understanding and
application of it may be. Even then if our understandings and applications
of truth were merely relevant, such truths would likely lack the
power to persuade us to change or sacrifice as directed by God.
In sum, to know the truth that God lives is both foundational and
transformational. To understand more about His nature and character
only adds details, important as they are- what He might look like,
where and how He might live, how He thinks and came to be, and such.
Our added upon understandings that go beyond the first principles
of the Gospel do not make the first principles relative, especially
in the sense that I have been using the term.
References
Bradford, M.
E. (1982). A Worthy Company: Brief lives of the Framers of the
United States Constitution. Marlborough, NH: Plymouth Rock
Foundation.
Bowen, Catherine
D. (1966). Miracle at Philadelphia: The story of the Constitutional
Convention May to September 1787. Boston, MA: Little, Brown
& Co.
Boettner, Loraine
(1972). In E.W. Smith, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.
Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed, p. 389.
Eidsmoe, John
(1987). Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith of our
Founding Fathers. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
Packer, Boyd
K. (1996). Things of the Soul. Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft.
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