Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:17-26 ESV)

This morning I retweeted (@theologetical) an opinion article by Baptist pastor Ed Stetzer in Christianity Today about why we all just can't get along: Unity in the Body and Working Relationships Beyond: What are the limits of cross-denominational partnership? It's an interesting topic, particularly with regard to the fractured factioned Christian Church. An excerpt:

If we can’t agree and unite in one denomination, how do we even think about unity with other denominations? How do Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals relate? What about Lutherans and Methodists? Are they in unity? If so, what is the unifying principle?

How do Presbyterians and Baptists—who disagree on pivotal theological distinctions—unite? Not theoretically, but in practice?

In a somewhat related opinion piece I retweeted from DallasNews.com (originally published in Forbes magazine) entitled How multiculturalism violates the Declaration of Independence, author Tom Lindsay (director of the Center for Higher Education at the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin) writes that "over the last century, the belief in absolute truth has largely succumbed — certainly in our universities — to moral relativism, which holds that all so-called “Truth” is in fact relative to the speaker. For moral relativists, all moral principles, which relativists label “value judgments,” are merely subjective preferences. Reason, in this account, can discover no hierarchy of “values;” all values are equal, because all are equally groundless."

This set me to wondering about the dangers of moral relativism (if I understand it correctly) in the church sense... Is the truth, in fact, relative to the speaker? Well, I'd have to say yes, to explain the many brands of Christianity (as well as sects, cults, near-beers, and do-it-yourselfers). Lindsay goes on to say (my boldfacing):

Apparently oblivious to these defects, America presses on to curb the imposition of values. The latest form of this project goes under the name of “multiculturalism.” The term does not merely signify that America houses citizens who have come from a variety of cultures. Multiculturalism today is grounded in relativism, asserting the moral equality of all cultures. Cultures, after all, embody values.

After rejecting natural-rights doctrine, attributes such as class, power, race, gender, and sexual orientation become fundamental and no longer unite us as the Declaration’s world view once did. Now, our differences outweigh the similarities that the Declaration uses in positing a human nature (essence or soul), and on which its rights doctrine relies.

What must be done, short of the Second Coming, to right this ship of moral relativism? How does the 21st century Christian learn to embrace cultural differences in the missionary sense, not just be taught in church to "tolerate" another's belief system or lifestyle as one might live with spiders in the basement?

It's funny (not ha-ha funny) how these two published opinions meet in the middle; for many Christians, the problem is not the destination, but the journey-- and for a growing number of Americans (including, I'm certain, Christians) the Declaration of Independence's self-evident clause, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is the stuff of history textbooks and so takes a back seat to a "lawless liberty of the soulless self" (Lindsay's phrase-- a keeper!).

And I believe Stetzer is correct when he points out that "historic Christian groups who don’t agree on the gospel try to partner, the lowest common denominator is the result—a generic Christianity worth no one’s commitment."

A generic Christianity worth no one's commitment in a world promoting the lawless liberty of the soulless self... Maybe there is the plotline for God's Not Dead 3? (or, even better, Son of God's Not Dead!). I'd like to think such a time could exist only in a movie!