Truth and Relativism

Discerning What Is Best
With Dr Rex Rogers

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Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 05 September 2022

Have you heard that men can now have babies? I know. It surprised me too, but it’s a new truth in this Orwellian age.

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #44 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Truth is now under attack. Satan, the father of lies, has America in his crosshairs (Jn 8:44), and he is using contemporary philosophies, “isms” if you will, to lead people to suppress the truth in wickedness (Rom. 1:18).

As was said in the days of Isaiah, “truth is nowhere to be found” (Is. 59:15), or in the days of Jeremiah, “truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips” (Jer. 7:28), or the days of Daniel, “truth was thrown to the ground” (Dan. 8:12).

The attack shows up in references to “your truth” and “my truth” or “she has to live by her truth,” or “no one should force their truth on someone else.”

But you say, “It’s common sense.” Not anymore. You say, “It’s obvious.” Not anymore. Or you say, “Wait, it’s part of nature and natural law.” Not anymore. No, truth is no longer alignment with divine revelation and the evidence of creation. Truth is whatever we want it to be.

Truth under attack is apparent in a host of irrational statements our culture is now expected to accept as fact. Have you heard these amazing new “truths”?

What’s in a womb is not a baby, just a fetus, not human unless it is wanted, or at least until it is born, and then it may still be at risk in the minds of those who believe a woman and a doctor should be able to decide whether the newborn should live.
Biological sex at birth is not immutablebut is socially determined, thus boys can identify as, then transition to become girls, while girls can identify as, then transition to become boys.
Men can become pregnant and have babies, hence we no longer have mothers but “birthing persons.”
Abortion does not involve a baby human being but rather is about a woman’s control over her own body, is essential to reproductive health, and is a human right.
Crime and violence are not lawlessness, just the poor and other victims of white privilege doing what’s only fair.
“Gender is no more regarded as a binary concept where one can either be a male or a female. It has emerged as a continuum or spectrum where one can identify themselves as any of the gender identities. The term gender identity means how a person identifies themselves concerning their gender. It may be regardless of their anatomy or genetics…The idea is to make everyone feel comfortable in their skin irrespective of what gender they wereassigned at birth.” That was a quote. Notice the last phrase, “assigned at birth,” which reinforces the idea that someone arbitrarily labeled the baby a boy or girl, rather than sex being a biological given.
Same-sex marriage is normal.
Each person is determined by skin color, sexual orientation, or gender.

Those of us who disagree with these new “prevailing acceptable narratives” can now be ostracized on social media, lose employment, have reputations destroyed, or otherwise be “cancelled.”

People who oppose abortion are now labeled “abortion extremists,” “anti-woman,” and a threat to freedom.

People who believe biology matters, and who disagree that a person can decide to change sex in order to participate in sports or frequent bathrooms designed for the opposite sex, are accused of bigotry and hatred.

Nor is religion any longer accorded an honored space. Revisionists reinterpret history claiming religion is a greater source of human violence than secularism.

No matter that this is upside down. The murderous record of 20^th Century secular Nazi and Communist regimes alone puts the lie to this supposedly new “truth.”

In America today, Judeo-Christian values drawn from the Bible are being described as a means of preserving white patriarchy and white supremacy. This, too, is a lie.

Pedophiles, who once were called perverted, are now being described as simply “minor attracted persons.” Drag queens reading to grade school children is said to be about diversity and inclusion, not about normalizing twisted and degraded sexuality.

The attack on truth took on new urgency in the 1960s with the emergence of something called “moral relativism,” the idea that there are no absolute, objectively definable, and knowable truths. Everything is relative. Thus, nothing can be said to be better, right vs wrong, more beautiful, correct. Truth is unknowable.

In his writings in the 1970s and to his death in 1984, Christian philosopher Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer recognized this cultural threat when he coined the phrase “true truth.” From a Christian perspective, this phrase is redundant, but Schaeffer found it necessary to convey what he meant by truth, real objective truth, in an age given to relativizing all statements.

In the early 21^st Century, human feelings now matter more than objective reality, and if you say you disagree with a person, thus hurting their feelings, you are guilty of stomping upon their human rights.

In a culture that no longer believes in truth, a culture that has repeatedly rejected moral absolutes, to say you believe something is true is grating to the ear, judgmental, bigoted, offensive, and even irrational or crazy.

But Schaeffer reminded us, “Truth carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless.” Truth, true truth, challenges error, falsehood, lies.

To “buy the truth and do not sell it,” as it says in Proverbs (23:23), can come with a price. To those who do not want to hear, those who are in the language of the Old King James “willingly ignorant” (2 Pet. 3:5), truth is the enemy. You who hold and express the truth are the enemy. If we state truth, as we should, we will face opposition, ridicule, maybe rejection and hurt from our own family and friends.

But the price of not holding fast to the truth and of not speaking the truth in love is enormously high.

If there is no truth, there are no inalienable human rights, no real freedom. If there is no truth, there is no trust because one can never be sure or certain. We’re left with deceit, pain, disillusionment.

People wonder, “What’s happening to America? It seems like we’ve gone nuts, that nothing is valued, not patriotism, not law and order, not decency. It’s like we’re a different country.”

Well, we are a different country, at least in the sense that great swaths of the population now embrace ideas and values, an entire worldview, that would be foreign even to the criminal element a generation ago.

The idea there is no truth, nothing trustworthy, not even God for many people, undermines everything else we experience. And this attack on truth is being propagated from the White House and the U.S. Congress, state capitals, courtrooms, the ivy halls of academia from kindergarten to graduate school, corporate messaging, sports, entertainment, and the arts.

Scripture says, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Ps. 11:3). What do we do? We speak truth. In an age of untruth, of attack on truth, our greatest testimony is to be people of truth, to live truthfully, to speak truthfully.

In Jesus’s prayer of John 17, he said, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (Jn 17:17-18).

We are to be in the world but not of the world even as we go into the world.

And we are to speak truth. We will face opposition. We may be harassed or in some way hampered. But God is God. He cannot be canceled. His truth remains forever.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 22 March 2022

Isn’t it amazing to hear seemingly sophisticated people saying things that seem to lack common sense? Does common sense even exist anymore?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #15 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

The idea of “common sense” goes back to Aristotle and, generally, refers to a kind of basic awareness or ability to perceive, understand, and judge in a manner that shared by nearly all people.

But for there to be common sense, people need to believe certain thing in common. In other words, they, and the culture they produce, embrace certain understandings, what the philosophers call “presuppositions,” about God, humanity, the created order, right and wrong. We order our lives around such presuppositions.

But we now live in an upside-down age that defies presuppositions rooted in Christian faith. Consequently, we live in an irrational age. Pretty much, like the days of Noah, people do whatever they want to do, when they want to do it, with whom they want to do it. This sounds good. Sort of sounds like freedom.

But what we’re doing doesn't add up. No matter if you measure by history, religion, moral philosophy, nature, or common sense, the answer is the same: a lot of what we’re doing is irrational, i.e., it makes no sense.

Why? Because so much of what we’re doing jettisons concern for right or wrong, defies faith and reason, and is disconnected from reality as God designed it.This is the very definition of irrational.

Freedom is a wonderful thing, a blessing, and a gift from God to humanity. God created us with free will. It’s part of being made in his image.

But freedom works best, guided by belief in God, individual responsibility, and personal accountability. For freedom to thrive, it needs a culture wherein moral concerns remind us that life is best when lived within divine parameters.

The Scripture says it like this: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:13).

But these are old ideas, ones contemporary culture no longer recognizes. We want no one, least of all religion or even duty to God and country telling us what we cannot do.

Freedom to act with a moral compass of our own devising, freedom to do what’s right in our own eyes is what we want, and we’re chasing after this wind with all we’re worth.

This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

And I don’t just mean “bad people,” the violent, the murderer, the rapist. Certainly, they act with no regard for anything but their own gratification, rage, or emptiness.

Nor do I mean just the bold, often articulate, or creative, secularists, atheists, or hedonists among us. We know them today. If not “celebrities,” they’re called “influencers,” a term that means individuals who post their shallow values online, day in and day out, for millions of followers to read and emulate.

But these celebrity influencers are not a cause but a symptom. They’ve become who they are because they’ve been enabled by a culture enamored by the beautiful people, their high rent looks, or outrageous behavior, or material excess.

So, when I say we’re riding hell-bent for leather into irrationality, I don’t mean just the wayward ones out in la-la land. I mean “us,” our culture.

Contemporary culture—meaning our “way of life”—seems bent upon finding ways to embrace, even promote ideas, attitudes, values, and practices earlier cultures, and earlier generations in our culture, considered lacking in common sense. Indeed, in much of this, contemporary culture is celebrating irrationality.

Some of the ideas, attitudes, values, and practices we’ve recently embraced are irreverent, some are immoral, some are ill advised, and some, at least at one time, were illegal.

I say, “recently embraced,” but Solomon reminded us in the book of Ecclesiastes that there are no new practices under the sun, just old ones recycled (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

Of course, what one calls irreverent, immoral, ill advised, or illegal depends upon one’s worldview. What you believe—your presuppositions—about God, life, and truth influences what ideas, attitudes, values, and practices you consider legitimate. This is the prime reason contemporary culture celebrates irrationality. It does so because the current cultural zeitgeist, or “spirit of the age,” has jettisoned the idea of moral absolutes in favor of a new (ironically) absolute called “moral relativism.”

According to moral relativism, ultimate truth doesn’t exist…or if it does, it can’t be discerned or defined. And moral relativism also rejects the existence of clearly knowable, objectively established truth. In place of ultimate truth, or knowable, objective truth, contemporary culture affirms the idea, “There is no truth” or “What’s true for you may not be true for me.”

Consequently, since we can know nothing for sure, we cannot believe anything for sure. If we can know nothing and can believe nothing for sure, what we believe and, therefore, what we do does not matter.

A culture that does not believe in objective truth is vulnerable. Well, actually it is wide-open, to subjective “truth.” In other words, if we don’t believe truth is determined outside of us than it must be OK to determine it within us.

But this idea doesn’t work well, because human beings have depraved hearts and minds (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 1:28), so, what’s inside us is not strawberries and cream but darkness, a capacity for and an inclination to evil.

Scripture repeatedly describes human beings as created good and for good. Yes, humanity by God’s design started out well. But with what’s called the Fall, human beings gave over their hearts to sin and depravity.

Scripture uses phrases like “willingly ignorant” or “deliberately forget.” We forget on purpose what is right (2 Peter 3:5). We are influenced by sin’s “powerful delusion” (2 Thessalonians 2:11). We “suppress the truth by…wickedness,” we function with futile thinking and foolish hearts, and we “exchange the truth of God for a lie” (Romans 1: 18, 21, 25).

We’re so good at this we “invent ways of doing evil” and in terms of our evil ways of life we “not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them” (Romans 1:30, 32).

This approach to what’s right allows us to determine what to do based upon personal experience, or the new catch phrase—“fairness”—as opposed to deciding what’s righteous or what’s best, based upon biblical doctrine (Philippians 1:9-11), Church teaching, history, or even “natural law.”

So, if we want to have our cake and eat it too, or if we think “just the right amount of wrong” is a sustainable lifestyle, then what’s to stop us from joining Frank Sinatra and singing the classic humanist anthem:

“And may I say, not in a shy way
Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my wayFor what is a man, what has he got?

If not himself, then he has not
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels

The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way

Yes, it was my way.”

My way…

If we want to get an abortion, it’s my way.

If we want to say heterosexual relationships outside monogamous marriage are OK, well then, “If you can't be with the one you love honey, Love the one you're with.”

If we think we can win not just a race, we can beat the races, than why not gamble with abandon? Life is just a crapshoot anyway so let it ride.

If we want to believe life began by chance and that human beings are descended from some animalistic humanoid, it’s my way.

If we want to spend beyond our means including spending other peoples’ means (our children and grandchildren), there’s no piper to be paid, no reckoning. It’s all going to work out. It’s my way.

If we think God is an unnecessary hypothesis, that we can live life, and apparently the afterlife, without him, then what’s stopping us from creating our world and our future in our image? It’s my way.

And that’s the problem. We’re creating an increasingly scary world with a scarier future.

Celebrating irrationality is not rational.

Our culture cannot sustain itself indefinitely with this kind of pell-mell rush to senselessness. Yet lemming-like, we keep running toward the cliff.

But God is still the God who created reality. If we want to celebrate rationality, to exercise common sense, do it God’s Way.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 18 February 2022

I used to think today’s version of the Scripture’s “false prophets” were just shyster preachers. But the Devil is more subtle. Think about it. Who do we watch, and to whom do we listen? Who are the most influential purveyors of false ideas in American culture today?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #5 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Every day, present-day “false prophets” intentionally and effectively attack the core beliefs and values of the Christian Church and American culture.

This is a growing existential threat, for Judeo-Christian values no longer provide a “sacred canopy” over American culture. Historic, foundational biblical values are no longer ascendant, respected, or even referenced by a vast cross-section of society.

So false prophets now practice their craft with little resistance.

The New Testament contains many admonishments about individuals who (2 Peter 2), motivated by greed or arrogance, attempt to speak for God, (Jude 4).

The Apostle Peter also cites “false teachers,” who propagate “destructive heresies.” Peter warned us these are people who ‘will bring the way of truth into disrepute and…will exploit you with stories they have made up” (2 Peter 2:1-3).

Scripture says, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves,” (Matthew 7:15-16)

False prophets are people who speak untruth while at times claiming they speak for God and his Word.

Present-day false prophets—wolves in sheep’s clothing—are thriving. They promote ideas, philosophies, and ideologies contradictory to biblical teaching, antithetical to Christianity, subversive to the Church, and destructive to a free culture.

Present-day false prophets are exercising considerable influence

--in public schools --on university campuses

--on political stages

--in media entertainment

–through social media

--via bestsellers

--in corporate training sessions

--in government

--even in the US military.

Some false prophets are what’s now called, “online influencers,” people operating lucrative websites, video channels, or social media sites, marketing lies, especially to young people.

Who are these false prophets? Well, they can be intellectuals/professors, politicians, activists, or celebrities.

Present-day false prophets market political correctness, woke cancel culture, open hostility to a biblical worldview of law, order, and justice. They tout grand nihilistic ideologies and economic or racial determinism. They celebrate rebellion in the name of absolute freedom. They promote tribalistic identity politics and a culture of fear, and they sow chaos, madness, division, and discord, for these conditions are their path to power.

Present-day false prophets are active every day in the nation’s schools from kindergarten through graduate university, promoting anti-biblical views of human sexuality, sharing ideas with grade schoolers that are so perverse I haven’t stated them in this podcast.

Present-day false prophets use critical race theory to teach reductionist racial division, animosity, and victimhood. Some promote racism in the name of “anti-racism.”

Among entertainment celebrities, false prophets present selfie-dominated hedonism, i.e., wear fewer clothes with each Instagram picture, hop in and out of intimate relationships, and live for self-gratification, as demonstrated in their latest TikTok video.

The message many celebrity-false prophets offer is the sexual revolution and materialism writ large. It’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, look for us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

False prophets believe in no truth, no right and wrong. But their “no truth” philosophy has practical consequences:

If no truth > no life-changing Word,
No truth > no Holy God,
No truth > no law and order, no justice = only lawless riots, crime,
No truth > no sin = only a non-judgmental anything goes, all problems are psychological, therapeutic, So there is no forgiveness, no remedy, no hope,
No truth > no freedom = no inalienable human rights…that leaves only power.

The battle today is not between Republicans and Democrats.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans are ultimately or sufficiently committed to lasting objective ideals. They are about power too.

Consequently, neither Party’s politicians—at least most of them—are positioned to put up much resistance, so neither Party is going to slow the influence of present-day false prophets.

In fact, our challenge today is spiritual not political, and there are no political solutions to spiritual problems.

The battle today is between a morally relativistic, humanistic vision of society that acknowledges no truth versus an historic Judeo-Christian vision of society that acknowledges the Sovereign Creator God of the Bible.

I don’t know if we are yet in the “end times” the Bible talks about, though some believers, including my Mother, believe that we are and she may be correct.

But either way, these are dark days, and our days are likely to get darker, but we need not despair.

God is not surprised by 21^st Century issues any more than he was surprised when Lincoln prayed in the White House during the Civil War.

Present-day false prophets—celebrities, influencers, ideologues—may challenge the Church, they may enjoy a season of cultural success, but the end of their false ideas is certain, for God is still God.

Pastor John Piper said, “The shape of error is always changing. You can’t preach enough negative sermons to stay ahead of it. And you don’t have to. The best protection against the darkness of error is the light of truth.”

The best way to respond to untruth is with the truth that sets us free (John 8:32):

How do we do this?

Discerning truth from error (Phil. 1:8-9).
Speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15).
Being ready always to give an answer (1 Pet. 3:15).
Participating in a ministry of reconciliation (1 Cor. 15:11-21).
Praying for grace and unity in the Church (Eph 4:1-16).

Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 28 October 2021

Our culture long since discarded the idea of objective truth, i.e., something is true or false no matter our feelings about it. I’ve understood this for a long time.

What did not occur to me until recently is that loss of truth brings with it loss of trust. If there is no knowable truth, just uncertainty, truth claims, lies and falsehoods, then what or who can you trust?

This introduces another level of dysfunction. You carry Who can I trust? into every interaction: Is this news fake, Is this business dishonest, Are these election results valid, Is this health info correct? Then we get litigiousness, lawlessness, even an inability to engage in bona fide relationships because, well, no one is trustworthy.

At best, we muddle through.

At worst, some fall into anxiety, disillusion, alienation, anomie, hopelessness. It’s why there’s so much talk today about mental health, even among gifted, wealthy young athletes, and especially among youth. Kids are committing suicide because their lives have lost meaning.

Truth and trust are not just philosopher topics. Their loss affects us every day.

But there is a remedy. Read your pennies: “In God We Trust.”

penny

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 12 January 2021

The Nashville bomber, who damaged 41 buildings and injured 3 people, reportedly believes shape shifting, blood-sucking reptilian humanoids are invading earth to control the human race. He apparently thinks these lizard aliens hang out in the local park.

Some of the Capitol Building invaders, damaging the seat of democracy and causing the injury or death of 5 people, were adherents of QAnon, a collection of conspiracy theories arguing an underground cabal of Satan-worshipping, pedophile, liberal elites control everything globally, including the deep state clandestinely running the US government, funded by their human trafficking sex ring.

It is said that truth is the first casualty of war. Now it is a casualty of peace. American culture has been jettisoning belief in truth, i.e. moral absolutes, since at least the 1960s. “Post-truth” and “truthiness” are now part of our vocabulary.

When truth disappears, there’s nothing left but superstition, fakery, myth, talking points based on emotion not evidence, and outright paganism.

American culture and many of its leaders have been seduced by the dark side and are now sadly the victim of our own unforced errors, self-inflicted wounds, bad choices. Satan, the father of lies, is having a field day. How else can we explain lizard people?

This is not simply a problem of the Left but also the Right, not a problem unique to one party but not the other. Hypocrisy is rampant across the board.

So, “if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3).

Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

Focus upon this, test what you hear, think critically not emotionally, learn and use a Christian worldview to critique every political leaders’ values, statements, and actions, do not look to government or politicians as your source of hope, do not mistake your politics for your faith.

Our Christian friends in the Middle East and North Africa have lived for decades in countries and cultures where government is not friendly to them. They put their faith in providence not politicians and politics. We can learn from them.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 11 October 2020

Truth seems up for grabs in our confused culture.

It is possible to speak truth in a nasty way or for improper motives, which is why Scripture reminds us to speak the truth in love.

God is the ultimate source of truth. Actually, he is truth, so he defines reality and he never said, "Don’t speak the truth." So, speaking truth is not an act of hate, as incredibly some now claim.

It may seem harsh, for example, to call something error, wrong, sin, but if true, it creates an opportunity for change, correction, forgiveness, redemption > hope.

Without truth, there is no hope.