Relativism: The King Has No Humble Clothes On

The Ligonier Conference in Orlando this past weekend lifted my heart and sharpened my mind. We received our tickets freely by His grace, in an online raffle John had entered. I am thankful for the sweeter, fuller view of the Lord that His gift had given me.
Of course, I start with John Piper. His second lecture was on "The Challenges of Relativism," how to destroy or at least expose this destructive stronghold that hinders people from the truth.
He clarified the difference between thinking relatively as compared with relativism. To think relatively is good and necessary. If you don't understand how to think relatively, you will jump all over people before you understand what they are saying. The example he gave is that if he says John MacArthur is tall, that is true if the standard is other men. The statement is not true if the standard is a giraffe.
This is not relativism because both parties in a conversation can have the same objective standard in mind. If you make the standard clear, then you can agree or disagree. This is a good way to think -- relatively. In conversations, always try to clarify the standard so you can accurately judge what someone is saying.
But in relativism, there is no objective truth. Or there is objective truth, but you can't know it. Relativists say that YOUR standard of measurement can't be put on them, that there is NO one standard of measurement for good or bad or right or wrong. So Truth becomes whether your ideas conform to YOUR OWN standards of measure. Truth is based on preferences or, perhaps shared community values.
Piper said that most relativists are defacto relativists or functional relativists. They live as relativists, but haven't thought it all out. He used Matthew 21:23-27 to show where the seed of relativism begins.
"And when He entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to Him as He was teaching, and said, 'By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?' Jesus answered them, 'I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?' And they discussed it among themselves saying, 'If we say, "From heaven," he will say to us, "Why then did you not believe him?" But if we say, "From man," we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.' So they answered Jesus, 'We do not know' And he said to them, 'Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.' " (Matthew 21:23-27)
The chief priests think this out and know that if they say "heaven" they will be shamed. If they say "man" they will be harmed. So they must think of a new truth and assert that one: "We don't know." This is the way the depraved mind works. The adulterous mind wants to marry what it delights in . It does not want the Truth. The adulterous mind is governed by its own wants, those wants govern what we say to be true. This is universal until we have a regenerated mind.
The mind is prostituted, in bed with our passions. They did not use their minds to formulate truth. What is at stake for these guys? Not Truth. The mind becomes the nimble slave to passions. The language does the dirty work of covering the truth. Language is a covering for duplicity.
They don't want shame or harm, so they create a truth that gets them out of this: We don't know. To which Jesus says: I don't carry on serious conversations with the likes of you.
The claim that there is no standard for measuring good or evil is rooted in these fellows' way of thinking. They want to enjoy the exaltation of self, to preserve comfort. So they create a philosophy that will protect what they want.
This is bad and we must avoid it, recognize it, bring up our children so they don't believe it.
The best way to fight it is to articulate as well as you can its evil, destructive effects. Show them where it leads so that they might awaken to their folly.
Piper listed seven destructive effects of relativism:
1. Relativism commits treason against God. A revolution against the objective standard is a revolution against God. He is the ultimate, external, objective standard, valid for all. When relativism says there is no external, objective standard, he speaks like an atheist and commits treason. Relativism does not come out and say, "I will not submit to your law," he says, "There is no law." If you do not try to overcome relativism, you are complicit in treason.
2. Relativism cultivates duplicity. Believing relativism to be true is contradictory. Nobody tries to live relativism consistently. It cultivates duplicity because it won't stand up philosophically or practically. They say they believe it but they don't live it, so it breeds hypocrisy and is morally corrupting. The very processes of thinking commit the relativist to principles that are self-contradictory. The philosophy is shot through with self-contradictions. It is immoral. People do not live as relativists. A professor will teach it in a classroom, but when he gets home he will be upset if his wife does not understand that his words mean just what he intends to communicate to her; they have one objective meaning. You believe that what you write has an objective meaning. Nobody is a relativist in a court room where objective innocence hangs on objective evidence.
3. Relativism conceals doctrinal defection. The effect on language is devastating. If you believe there is absolute Truth, words are so very important. In a culture, where truth is scorned, where there is no objective external Truth, then language becomes power broking. When objective Truth vanishes, then language is no longer the humble servant. It creates its own reality. Language no longer defines truth. It defines preferences. It is not the presentation of reality, but the creation of reality. Language has a devious capacity for concealing the truth.
When it comes to the creeds, J. Gresham Machen said in 1925 that someone can affirm the creeds of the church but be totally separate from the reformed faith: All is denied because all is affirmed merely as useful. Language is no longer a strong affirmation, it is saying, "I find this confession useful." The utilitarian view of language is a direct result of relativism: Vague, indirect speech lets others think you are still orthodox when you're not.
Relativism corrupts the high calling of language, makes it a criminal covering doctrinal defection of those afraid to say, "I've left the faith."
4. Relativism cloaks greed with flattery. Flattery is using language to make people feel good so that you can get something from them. Language must be submissive to reality. Language should not be a pretext for greed by becoming flattery.
5. Relativism cloaks pride in the guise of humility. Relativism looks humble but it isn't. When Truth goes, so does humility. If there's Truth, universally valid for all men, then we must submit to it -- "understand" it, or stand under it -- not stand over it as a ruler. You're a servant of the Truth. What happens to you soul when you decide it's not there? You become so humble you can't discern the Truth, therefore, you don't put yourself under it.
Relativism protects arrogance. It is the essence of original sin -- pride. It poses as humility. It puts on humble clothes and walks around the streets speaking of humility, but it chooses every step it takes on that path. It says, "I WILL choose." We need many humble childlike simple people willing to say, "The king has no humble clothes on" That there would be more children to point that out.
6. Relativism enslaves people. The Bible says the Truth will set you free.  Relativism teaches a view of Truth that makes it undefinable. Fog does not free people from sin. They stay in chains.
Relativism leads people away from a love of the truth and so enslaves them and destroys them.
7. Relativism leads to brutal totalitarianism. When relativism reigns, everyone begins to do what is right in his own eyes; no one puts themselves under the Truth.  Society begins to break down. Relativism leads to chaos, and at a certain point any ruler will be welcomed who can restore order. You end up with a dictator.  Relativism, while professing unfettered freedom, ultimately destroys freedom.

 

This is What Stuck...

We watched Henry V while on vacation in the late fall, and two distinct parts have proved memorable for me. I keep thinking of Henry's rousing speech urging his greatly outnumbered men to go ahead anyway with the battle:

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers:
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother: be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here:
And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks,
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

I read those words, and it stirs me to fight the good fight of my Christian faith, because there is no cause more just and no King more worthy of my loyalty than Him. He has my heart, and I am honored to follow and die for Him. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. Christians.

The other part that I can't forget is after the battle when Henry comes upon all the slaughtered young boys. He is so filled with despair that it colors his whole view of the battle. Even though they have overwhelmingly won, he cannot see that from where he is on the battlefield.

"I tell thee truly, herald,
I know not if the day be ours or no..."

In the midst of parenting, in the midst of church work, helping others with painful burdens ... it doesn't really look like we're winning most of the time. But that doesn't mean that we're not. Our hope is not in what it looks like on the battlefield; our hope is in God's promises.

Our Anniversary, Part I: Surprise!

You all did a great job of keeping a secret. I still didn't know where we were going for our anniversary until we got up to the ticket counter at the airport. I thought I heard the man say, "Boston?" but I wasn't sure until I saw him put the tickets on the baggage. Yes, I was very excited, because I knew that I would see all kinds of history that would remind me of all the Christians who founded this country and would lift my soul. And that is exactly what happened. Plus, lots more.
When we got on the plane, we both fell asleep immediately and slept soundly until we landed. Then we rented a car, with a very cool Global Positioning System. John, you would have loved this thing. You just punch in a destination and it tells you step by step how to get there. If you miss a turn, it says "Recalculating," and then revises its directions. Well, Daddy nearly killed us with playing with it while driving, but we greatly enjoyed it. And it did help us find everything we could have wanted. I thought of you when we drove through Ted Williams tunnel almost immediately upon leaving the airport.
The Bed and Breakfast was called The Lamb and Lion Inn. If this link works, you will get to see some of it. As you know, (and have learned to pronounce with such flourish), it was located in Barnstable. When I saw the name, I thought it might be run by Christians, but they had just bought the inn from someone else. Driving up to it, we passed all these beautiful fences made of piled-up stones. All I could think of was reading Johnny Tremain out loud together when you guys were little. I wished that you could both have seen it and hope that someday we can take you there. In the back of the inn was a huge barn with a weathervane on the top. It was bitterly cold but the inn was so cozy.
You've already seen the picture of the room we stayed in, but it was even nicer than the picture. I haven't got the film developed yet, but I will take them in tomorrow because I really want you to get to see all of this. What was so wonderful was the fireplace and getting to sleep next to it. The first night it snowed lightly, which was exactly what I had wanted. Daddy had picked just what I had dreamed of, and God had provided the snow. This was too much to even ever think I would have. He gives us immeasurably more than we can ask for or imagine. Can you imagine what heaven must be like then?
Outside our window was a little garden and some woods, and the innkeepers took great pains to attract a variety of birds by putting out different kinds of seeds. They also had three little dogs and allowed people to bring pets. We met a huge Bearneise Mountain Dog named Monty, who strolled right into our room. Leah, I thought of you and how much you would have loved this dog. Our Buck will need a few years of calming down though before he would be an acceptable guest at the Lamb and the Lion.

Part II: C-c-cold C-c-cape C-c-cod

We wanted to drive up to Provincetown where the Pilgrims had signed the Mayflower Compact. There is a huge Pilgrim Monument It was a beautiful drive along historic 6A.
We stopped to see the Nauset Lighthouse and to look out at a very different beach than we see in South Florida. It was so bitterly cold by the water that I could feel it right down to my broken pinkie finger. (I'm not kidding.) It made me understand better how hard it would have been for the pilgrims that first winter. I had started out the trip a hale and hearty soul, ready for adventure, bragging to Daddy about how I was of stout New England stock and would have certainly been a pilgrim had I lived back then. He was not buying it from the start. He was right. By this point in the trip, I was doing some whimpering. Just a little. To myself. Guess I'm not as tough as I think I am and need to be reminded of it every so often. (Don't tell him, though.)
When we got to Provincetown, I was amazed at how narrow the streets were. We drove around briefly, then parked and tried to go look at a carved monument depicting the signing of the Mayflower Compact. We started down a hill toward it -- then looked at each other, realized we would have to go back up this hill, against the biting wind, and quickly turned around and went back to the car. Hale and hearty, ha! Florida has made us soft, I fear. But I really was thankful that Daddy didn't have the Iwo Jima Memorial mindset that day. (Although that is one of my favorite memories ever!)
We jumped back in the car and went to the Inn. We were so bitterly cold that we went in the outdoor jacuzzi. Now you might think that this is really crazy, but the water was so very hot that it warmed us to the core even though we were outside. We didn't want to get out, ever. But when we did get out, we were still warm. Well, for a very short while. But long enough to get inside and get another fire going. The second night was much colder. We sat on the floor, nearly in the fireplace for most of that evening. The wind was just whistling outside. It was like nothing we experience in South Florida, and you would have loved it. I thought of that picture that John Piper paints of how our salvation makes us view God with great hope and fear. He says it's like being inside of a safe warm cave while witnessing a vicious storm outside. There is a reverent fear because of the power of the storm, just you have reverent fear of God's holiness and wrath. ("He hurls down His crystals of ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold?" Psalm 147:17) But you are also filled with great hope, because you are safe from that storm of wrath and find favor with the Judge as you cling to Jesus. ("The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in His steadfast love." Psalm 147:11)
The next morning, we drove into Boston but stopped in Plymouth on the way. This was one of the highlights of the history sites for me. We saw Plymouth Rock but what struck me the most was The First Burying Ground Monument, which actually contained the remains of the pilgrims who died that first winter. On the side of it was a marvelous tribute:
HERE UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS THE FAST DWINDLING COMPANY
LAID THEIR DEAD LEVELING THE EARTH ABOVE THEM LEST THE
INDIANS SHOULD LEARN HOW MANY WERE THE GRAVES
READER HISTORY RECORDS NO NOBLER VENTURE FOR FAITH AND
FREEDOM THAN THAT OF THIS PILGRIM BAND. IN WEARINESS
AND PAINFULNESS IN WATCHINGS OFTEN IN HUNGER AND COLD
THEY LAID THE FOUNDATIONS OF A STATE WHEREIN EVERY MAN
THROUGH COUNTLESS AGES SHOULD HAVE LIBERTY TO WORSHIP
GOD IN HIS OWN WAY. MAY THEIR EXAMPLE INSPIRE THEE TO DO
THY PART IN PERPETUATING AND SPREADING THE LOFTY IDEALS
OF OUR REPUBLIC THROUGHOUT THE WORLD!

Part III: On to Boston

Once in Boston, we stayed at the Omni Parker House Hotel , which Daddy had picked because all sorts of famous authors had stayed there, including Charles Dickens and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. There was all kinds of memorabilia in the lobby, such as a mirror that he used to prepare for readings of his works. Apparently, he would act out his dialogue, using wild gestures and strange facial expressions to make his characters come alive. He sounds like such an eccentric, taking long walks through Boston, wearing a brightly colored coat and a striped cravat and attracting all kinds of attention. He was part of a men's group called the Saturday Club that met at this hotel and included poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., the father of the Supreme Court justice.
Another neat thing about this hotel was that it was within walking distance of most of the more well-known historic sites in Boston. On Sunday morning, we visited a congregational church called Park Street Church just three blocks from our hotel. The setting for worship was sweet -- the historic building, the choir singing traditional hymns in harmony, a haunting French horn as we closed. Outside the window, I could see old crooked headstones in a cemetery, reminding me to focus on eternity. We liked the preaching fine and respected what this church seems to be trying to do in a very liberal area.
The history of the church is a noble one. Here is an excerpt from their website on how the church started:
"We hereby covenant and engage... to give up ourselves unto the Lord... to unite together into one body for the public worship of God and the mutual edification one of another in the fellowship of the Lord Jesus: exhorting, reproving, comforting and watching over each other, for mutual edification; looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of ... our Savior Jesus." (from the park Street Church Articles of Faith and Government, adopted on Feb. 23, 1809)
"With these words, twenty-six charter members covenanted together to form Park Street Church.
In a time of increasing apostasy from the gospel and rising unitarianism in New England, a small group of devoted Christians, primarily form th Old South Church, formed a "Religious Improvement Society" in 1804 to hold weekly prayer meetings and lectures. Though they faced opposition from all sides, the group continued to meet for six years, founding Park Street Church in February of 1809."
Anyway, starting off our sightseeing with the timeless Truths of the Lord made all of the history we encountered even richer. We saw the Old South Meetinghouse, where they made plans for the Boston Tea Party; the Old Statehouse, outside whose doors five Americans were killed by British soldiers in 1870 -- the Boston Massacre. We walked past Faneuil Hall and cemeteries where Ben Franklin's parents, Sam Adams, William Dawes and pilgrim Mary Chilton were buried. Our walk ended at the Old North Church, where the two lanterns had been hung at the start of Paul Revere's famous ride to alert the minutemen.
The entire time we were walking the Freedom Trail in Boston, I was wishing you kids could see all that we were seeing. It just makes all the books that we have read about this time period come to life. To see it through your eyes would give me great joy.
But I am so grateful that the Lord gave Daddy and I this time to enjoy our marriage and each other. God has chosen to bless our marriage: Being with him fills me with deep, increasing joy. Nobody makes me laugh as hard as Daddy, nobody is as full of interesting perspectives and facts as him, and there is nobody I enjoy more. I am so thankful that that is the case. That is an amazing thing to me, after all these years. We just read in The Holiness of God that "what emerges in great art and great music is a depth of dimension that does not quickly become stale or trite... the piece tends to become more and more fascinating as you discover more intricate nuances to it." And I am so grateful that the Lord has chosen to make this marriage a thing of beauty. Objectively. You kids have been given a rare gift in having parents who have been inexplicably blessed in this way. It is nothing that we did, and we certainly didn't deserve it. This marriage is nothing but the grace of God. I thank the Lord that He gave that to us -- and also to you. May this anniversary celebration bring you as much joy as it does us and may this marriage be a picture that you will always carry in your heart -- a picture of Christ and His joyful, grateful bride. Always pray for the Lord protect our precious marriage and to use it to bring glory to His name.