CONTENTS May/June 2003
Features
War, Peace, and United Methodism Good News responds to the situation in Iraq
Why Have You Forsaken Me? At the cross, disappointed hearts can find renewal, according to Steve Seamands
Why I Am (Even Yet!) a United Methodist It is grace and grateful loyalty that keep Will Willimon in the denomination
Renewing the Church Diane Knippers combats post-modern "cafeteria religion"
John Wesley & Just WarPeter R. McGuire addresses the ongoing disconnect between modern United Methodism and its founder
First to Pray! Chaplains Lead the Way They are representives of the holy, Kathy L. Gilbert affirms, often in the most unholy of places
God and Man in the Oval Office Fred Barnes appreciates the delicate balance of personal faith in public leadership
COLUMNS Editorial The Ties that Bind
The Next Generation Pluralism: Growing Up in a World Where There is No Wrong
Renew Women's Network A Tribute to My Mom
The Great Commission Citizens of Heaven with American Passports
From the Heart Tevia's Question
DEPARTMENTSStraight Talk
NewsComplaints dismissed against Bishop Sprague
Lambrecht responds to dismissal of Sprague complaint
Dunnam speaks out on Asbury Seminary flag flap
"I was wrong about the war in Iraq," says pastor
If your youth group has ever spent any time discussing an ethical question, the dialogue was probably shaped by phrases like these:
• “It’s not right for us to force our morality on someone else.”
• “Who am I to say that someone else is doing something sinful?”
• “We do not have the right to judge other people.”
• “It’s not for me to say that somebody else is involved in sin?”
• “We need to be careful about being judgmental.”
• “I don’t think we have the right to condemn other people.”
• “The Bible says not to judge.”
• “None of us really has the right to question someone else’s moral choices; it’s a personal decision.”
• “It’s not right for us to say someone else is wrong. Christians get a bad name because they lack tolerance.”
In an ongoing look at youth culture, we explored in the last issue of Good News what it might be like to grow up in a world marked by secularism—a world in which all symbols, discussions, and institutions of religion have been pushed to the distant margins of public life.
Continuing our study with this issue, we note that the natural outgrowth of a secularism that says “there is no such thing as Truth” is a pluralism that says, “there is no such thing as false.” Or, as G. K. Chesterton put it: “The trouble with someone who does not believe in God is not that he will end up believing in nothing; it is that he will end up believing in anything.”
Ravi Zacharias defines pluralism as “the existence and availability of a number of world views, each vying for the allegiance of individuals, with no single world-view dominant”(Deliver Us from Evil, p. 70-71). Whereas the adolescent culture of the sixties and seventies fostered the notion that truth was something you had to find for yourself, the current climate of adolescence sees truth as something you have to form for yourself.
Most teenagers see truth as an intensely personal matter. That’s why any judgements about right and wrong are not just judgements against ideas, they are judgements against persons. That’s why it feels so wrong to them. If all truth is created by humans, and all humans are created equal, then it’s only right to accept all ideas as equally true. In the world of kids, this type of pluralism is usually couched in well-worn phrases like those above.
Alan Wolfe’s account of the moral outlook of the American suburban middle class in his book, One Nation, After All, provides an apt depiction of the degree to which many people have now gravitated toward what is often referred to in the media as the “sensible center.” As Wolfe puts it, “Middle-class Americans have added an Eleventh Commandment: …‘Thou Shalt Not Judge.’”
While there is certainly merit in the type of pluralism that short-circuits arrogance and bigotry, this type of pluralism is marked by two glaring flaws. The first one is that all ideas are not created equal, and exercising good judgement is all that stands between human beings and beasts. The second one is that quite often people who consider themselves pluralistic can be very narrow-minded towards those who disagree with them. Or to put it differently, every opinion is equally valid, except for the opinion that every opinion is not equally valid. Have you ever heard a teenager condemn someone for being judgmental? Or, the dogmatic way in which kids state, “It’s not right to judge people…”? “Whatever…!”
Teenagers immersed in this kind of cultural environment are not comfortable with exclusive truth claims, whether they be religious or moral in nature. It’s not so much that they would dispute the validity of the claims. They would simply dispute their equal validity for all people. That’s why those kids in your youth group don’t say, “That’s not true.” They just say, “That may be true for you, but it’s not true for me….”
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