Evangelicals: “Moral Relativism Is Dead”

“Moral Relativism Is Dead,” declared Ted Olson in Christianity Today last March:

Elvis. Tupac. The ivory-billed woodpecker. Sometimes it’s hard to let go and acknowledge when a celebrity or a species has left us. Christians find it particularly hard to come to terms with the passing of the “moral relativist.” Yes, there is the occasional reported sighting in the local university’s philosophy wing or at the late-night dorm room’s impromptu debate club. But compared to this creature’s former range and numbers, they’re all but extinct in the wild.

Many Christian preachers, apologists, evangelists, and writers have taken heed of the declining numbers, but decades of pitting “Christian worldview” against “moral relativism” left habits that are hard to break. You’ll still hear Christians assume that the reason for so much rampant immorality in our culture is because people reject objective right and wrong. Many still assume that discussions over morals are likely to end with, “Well, that’s your truth, but I have mine.” Make no mistake: Disputes over morality are as strong as they have ever been. But if we view these disputes through the lens of “moral relativism,” it’s not only our understanding of our culture that will suffer. Our evangelistic witness will also be severely blunted.

I lived in the evangelical bubble until the mid-oughts. I don’t have personal experience with the world outside of this bubble during the 1980s and 1990s. I do have personal experience being taught to see moral relativism as the antithesis of Christianity, with its supposed moral absolutes, and being taught that moral relativism held sway in the world outside my evangelical bubble. When I left that bubble, what I found bore little resemblance to what I’d expected to find.

I appreciate that Olsen recognizes that the battle he is fighting today is not one of evangelicalism v. moral relativism—but then, I wonder whether it ever truly was.

I’m not saying there is nothing is different about the twenty-first century, compared to the decades that preceded it. Things absolutely have changed in a variety of ways. The Atlantic noted this last year in an article titled “The Death of Moral Relativism” (no, Olson’s piece was clearly not original):

Thoughtful conservatives who are less concerned with waging culture wars have begun to admit that such a shift is occurring. In The New York Times last week, David Brooks argued that while American college campuses were “awash in moral relativism” as late as the 1980s, a “shame culture” has now taken its place. The subjective morality of yesterday has been replaced by an ethical code that, if violated, results in unmerciful moral crusades on social media.

A culture of shame cannot be a culture of total relativism. One must have some moral criteria for which to decide if someone is worth shaming.

“Some sort of moral system is coming into place,” Brooks says. “Some new criteria now exist, which people use to define correct and incorrect action.”

I think we need to make several distinctions here.

First, we need to distinguish between what might be called “spiritual relativism,” on the one hand, and moral relativism on the other. I suspect that when evangelicals have lambasted “moral relativism” over the past fifty and more years, what they’ve frequently meant is spiritual relativism. You’re Hindu? That’s cool. You’re not religious at all? Fine by me. And so forth.

Because evangelicals frequently equate religion and morality, spiritual relativism has often read as moral relativism—even when it’s not. And regardless of what may or may not be happening vis a vis moral relativism, this spiritual relativism has definitely not disappeared—if anything, it has increased.

Second, we need to distinguish between having morals and how we enforce morals. The rise of a “shame culture” today does not mean there were no moral absolutes in the past. I don’t believe young people—and it is typically young people accused of being at the center of “moral relativism”—shrugged their shoulders at rape, or murder, or genocide in 1990.

Moral relativism has often been a slippery term. I would argue that true moral relativism—a belief that there is no right and no wrong—is unsustainable. Of course, moral relativism is often defined as a belief that each culture has its own set of morals—and that morals are rooted in and specific to individual cultures, rather than absolute. And to be sure, there is truth to this. But then, consider the emphasis on stopping genocide, or ending India’s child bride practice.

Olson says moral relativism is dead, but was it ever truly alive? Efforts to end genocide, or child marriage—efforts that stretch back generations and span political affiliations—point to a belief in underlying absolutes. I’m deeply skeptical of evangelicals’ decades-long use of “moral relativism” in their messaging.

As the Atlantic notes:

Four years before he was hoisted to Speaker of the House, a smooth-faced Representative Paul Ryan declared, “If you ask me what the biggest problem in America is, I’m not going to tell you debt, deficits, statistics, economics—I’ll tell you it’s moral relativism.” It was a bold claim given the depth of the economic recession, which began years earlier. But Ryan was echoing the sentiments of his conservative ancestors who’d made similar claims.

For decades, evangelicals have appealed to “moral relativism” to suggest that they stand for morals and values while their opponents don’t. When you think about it, that’s pretty disgusting. It’s also completely inaccurate. For decades, the Left has pushed for programs like the SCHIP, which provides medical care for free children, and poverty-alleviation efforts—affordable housing, subsidized childcare, workers’ comp. One of the underlying moral values of the Left is that a society should take care of its own—and that all people should have access to healthcare, food, and housing.

My intent is not to get into the particular beliefs or values of the Left, but rather to point out that most activists have always believed in absolutes. Oh certainly, there will be differences between cultures, but there is an underlying ethos that isn’t relative. Why else would you see civil rights activism, and efforts to end Apartheid? Why else would you see the women’s movement burgeon into efforts to elevate women’s position worldwide through education and financial uplift?

I think back to what I was taught as a child, growing up in an evangelical home and community. We have moral absolutes, I was told, we believe in right and wrong. Everyone else does what is right in their own eyes—whatever makes them happy. Might makes right, survival of the fittest, etc. Outside of our evangelical bubble, I was taught, morals were relative, not absolute.

Giving me a more accurate view of those outside our bubble might have made me feel less lied to when I ventured out to see it for myself. So yes, we can talk about new directions in our moral culture, but let’s not pretend that evangelical warnings about “moral relativism” were every anything more than a disingenuous scare tactic.