Sunday, May 22, 2016 6:00 PM UTC
Upgrading religion for the 21st century: Christianity is forcibly evolving to cope with science and progress
The impact of Christian relativism: To remain a dominant force, formal religion must bend and adapt
Topics: 21st century, Catholics, Christianity, Editor's Picks, homosexuality, Religion, Innovation News, Sustainability News, Social News, Media News, Life News, News
In April, the pope made history when he told his flock to accept divorced Catholics. Last week, NPR reported a gay preacher had been ordained as a Baptist minister. Next year it might well be evangelicals in the deep South turning pro-choice. Everywhere around us, traditional Christian theology and its culture is breaking down in hopes of remaining relevant. The reality is with incredible scientific breakthroughs in the 21st century, ubiquitous information via the Internet, and an increasingly nonreligious youth, formal religion has to adapt to survive.
But can it do so without becoming obsolete? Perhaps more importantly, can Christianity — the world’s largest religion with 2 billion believers — remain the overarching societal power it’s been for millennia? The answer is not an easy one for the old faith-driven guard.
To remain a dominant force throughout the 21st century, formal religion will have to bend. It will have to adapt. It will have to evolve. Hell, it will have to be upgraded. Welcome to the growing impact of Christian relativism.
The familiar term cultural relativism was coined by anthropologist Franz Baos, who suggested that people have a difficult time understanding another’s culture without having grown up in it—so therefore we should strive to empathize more with foreign cultures and people. It’s a great concept, and after many years reporting for National Geographic in dozens of countries, I came to strongly believe in the idea.
Christian relativism, however, does not have that honor of generating empathy so easily—at least not until it separates itself from its cornerstone philosophy: adherence to the Bible. Even with its many dozens of translations, most everything in the Bible simply cannot be logically interpreted in a multitude of ways—or flippantly passed over in generous empathy. To make the Bible’s deity-approved instructions and ideas soundly work, church leaders pushing Christian relativism may simply have to back down or say it made a mistake with its past fundamentalism.
For example, if the Bible clearly says being gay is a sin (and it does many times), then Christians can’t just wake up one day and say homosexuality is permissible without dismissing God’s word. Another example is women; if the Bible says they can’t be priests and must submit to men, then the church can never profess to believe in equality—which is does all the time. Additionally, if committing blasphemy (striving to become god-like) through transhumanism is an unforgiveable sin that leads to eternal punishment, then Christians can’t say they represent a loving and kind God. The hypocrisy is too much to pretend one is being logical or reasonable—since transhumanists vocally aim to never die and possibly even become gods (or God) through science and technology.