The Slippery Slope (Pt. 4): Cultural Catastrophe

In our quest for understanding into the Slippery Slope, we have laid a basic foundation. We have noted that the Slippery Slope began centuries ago with Enlightenment philosophy, particularly the Rejection of the Bible’s God. We have shown that the only two epistemological standpoints are those of Revelation or Relativism. We have explored how the rejection of Revelation must lead to Relativism and to men groping in darkness. We have also looked at the stepping stones, however briefly, that brought us to the current issues of today. Particularly, we looked at the realms of Ecclesiology and Science and saw how the works of two men, Schweitzer and Darwin, moved us further down the Slippery Slope.

In our last article, we mapped out the steps, but we did not have time to fully explore the link between Relativism and Cultural disintegration. In this article, we would like to simply unpack this aspect a little.

Our starting point is a subjective one. It is you! Regardless of whether you are a Believer in Jesus Christ or a rejecter of Him, you need to understand that the world in which you live has been shaped by the abandonment of Revelation and the acceptance of Relativism. You also need to understand that you are living in an epistemological dichotomy. Most today do not understand this position or even realise the paradigm shift. Let’s illustrate this. In a previous life, I drove taxis. On one occasion I had a male passenger who expressed the view that the individual should simply do what makes them feel good. Immediately the thought passed through my mind – ‘Hmmm, let us test this theory. Grab him by the back of the neck and bash his head against the dashboard!’ Yes, a tad unsanctified, but what do you suppose his reaction would have been? Upon explanation that “I just felt like bashing him”, do you think this gentleman would have been calm and at peace with the fact the encounter was nothing more than another rational creature simply expressing himself as he desired? I doubt it. Here we have the dichotomy. This man expressed relativism as his epistemology, but in reality he would have expected applied revelation as an outcome. In other words, his expectation of outcome would have been toward justice and retribution against the assailant – a position supported only by God’s Revelation, not his stated relativism! Therefore, it is important to understand that today’s culture is totally exposed to disintegration. People within our culture, for the most part, are conflicted. Disintegration and conflict occur because, in Biblical language, they have ‘halted between two opinions’ (1 kings 18:21). Our culture wants an epistemology that worships each individual man as if he were a god (relativism); promulgating laws that see each of his desires are fully met. However, on the flip side, he wants all his rights and privileges protected on the basis of law, morals, and ethics that transcend the individual and move into the realm of absolutes. At this point, he wants to move from relativism to revelation!

To drive to the heart of cultural disintegration we must look at this conflict. To begin, we must look at some Biblical basics. 1. God is. 2. God spoke 3. In speaking, God created. 4. To His creation, God spoke Law-Words. 5. These Law-Words are covenant terms promising blessing and curse. 6. These covenant Law-Words are the basis for the happiness, prosperity, and well being of God’s creatures. 7. Therefore, these covenant Law-Words are to be obeyed, if a prosperous culture is to be experienced. Because God is an immutable, absolute being, possessing absolute power, He not only has the right to settle the terms of life for His creatures, but he has the will and the power to bring about all that He stipulates in His Law-Word.

Using marriage as an example, we see that God made man male and female. He called man to unity in the covenant bond of marriage. This bond He blessed with a command to be ‘fruitful and multiply’. Man obeyed because God had designed this life into man. Like the bow in the sky (Genesis 9:13), the child brought forth from the womb was nothing less than a covenant sign. The child proved the essence and reality of God’s design, purpose, and promise – fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it! As man obeyed this command, God upheld and sustained the marriage covenant at every step. Moreover, God hedged the marriage covenant with law to make sure that its sanctity was upheld (Exodus 20:12 & 14; Leviticus 20:10; Matthew 10:2-12); even extending laws to protect the child (Exodus 21:22; Numbers 3:11; Psalm 127:3-5; Matthew 18:10). Thus, from first to last, marriage is a covenant of life (fruitful), culture (subdue), and salvation (Genesis 3:15; Galatians 3:16) – eternal life and culture.

As God purposed for this marriage covenant to be the bedrock of society, God added penalty to law – thus truly indicating that marriage is a God-sanctioned covenant – so that man would respect this bond. When a person betrayed that covenant, the full weight of the law was to come upon them. There was to be guilt and innocence. There was to be bounty for the faithful; depravation for the guilty. Punishment of the guilty served the true end of justice, but it was also to be a deterrent (Deuteronomy 17:12; 19:19; 22:22).

By contrast, the relativism of finite man gives nothing but disintegration. Man has no real power and certainly nothing approaching the absolute. Man’s epistemology of relativism stands in stark contrast to The Immutable. There are no law-words of worth. Those that they possess, they have stolen! The heart of man does not give definitions of love, justice, goodness, holiness, etc. All these are terms borrowed, read stolen, from the Bible’s God. So man makes futile attempts to promulgate laws that are meant to give stability to culture and rights to the individual. They knock down in order to build, but their foundation is nothing but rubble. The edifice must collapse!

Again, let us illustrate this with marriage. Having jettisoned the Bible’s God, man was left to improvise. He could see some things of worth in the design of God, but they were bound too tightly to law and penalty. Man wanted freedom, not a lot, just enough to loosen the strictures – well that is how it began. So God’s Law-Word on marriage had to be replaced by man’s relative tenets on marriage. As man was a sexual creature, what did it matter if your slippers were parked, on occasion, under the wrong bed? So, of necessity, we must decriminalise adultery. This then opened the way for promiscuity. “No penalty, so what does it matter?” is the way man thought. The problem was that as a creature made in the image of God, promiscuity did matter. Innately, one or other of the parties felt aggrieved at the betrayal and wanted ‘out’ of the relationship. Because we had decriminalised adultery, what was the aggrieved party to do? After all, no harm no foul! So, we are given the Family Law Court that has a “no fault” policy. Question! How do you divide up a family, goods, and chattels without establishing guilt or innocence? At this point, man’s relativism has begun to destroy the very nature of law. With divorce increasing, the question then became, “Why get married?” Let’s “try before we buy!” Let us simply pretend to be married. Here, we have arrived at the place wherein “marriage” has become an absolute farce. Homosexuality, polygamy, bestiality, you and your grandmother – yes, be repulsed – is all on the table.

However, that is but the tip of the ‘iceberg’. Children, the fruit of the womb proving God’s covenant and design, are now openly attacked. Man hates God now. He is not looking for “wiggle room” but to throw off God’s rule (Psalm 2). Therefore, in true evolutionary style, the “live in lover” beats the child senseless because it is not his offspring. The couple want the pleasure of sex, but they have no interest in fruitfulness and dominion, so when the womb is bounteous they slay the contents as though of no more worth than a baked bean! The woman finds a new boyfriend and murders her children because he prefers that they were not around.

What happens to these slayers and child beaters? Nothing! Relativism has destroyed law. The fruit of the womb is no longer a covenant testimony to be honoured and treasured as life, culture, and salvation. No. It is now to be killed as burden and inconvenience; and the moral applied is “choice”. We still, hypocritically, take a dim view of child beaters and of the mother that kills her children, but we are slowly throwing of these shackles too! We now not only discuss abortion openly, but also infanticide.

Relativism is a culture of death and the death of a culture because it removes any and all meaning and therefore destroys purpose. Relativism limits everything to what it is. So, to the relativist, ‘marriage’ is nothing more than an agreement between two parties that gives some vague legal standing. It is for this reason that homosexuals, polygamists, and others push for the right to be married. To them, marriage serves no purpose beyond “recognition” or “equality”. The idea of covenant, blessing, fruitfulness, posterity, prosperity, dominion, covenant affirmation, and image bearing, are alien concepts.

Here, we have only drawn a few faint lines using marriage as an example, to show that the rejection of the Bible’s God must lead to Humanism and Relativism. The consequence of this shift must be Cultural Disintegration. We stepped onto the Slippery Slope centuries ago. We sowed the wind; we are now reaping the whirlwind! All that is upon us, all disintegration, stems from our rejection of God. Let us commit to restoration by once again embracing the One True and Living God that speaks through Jesus Christ His Son!