Is Jesus the Only Way?

About this sermon

Solomon the Wise tells us that, “there is really nothing new under the Sun” and that is certainly true when it comes to Relativism. The concept was introduced in the academic sense nearly 500 years before Christ by the Greek Sophist Pro-tag-oras. Protagoras was considered the ultimate “Spin Doctor”. He could argue and side of a case that he was assigned, even when limited to the weakest argument. Ironically, he authored a book entitled, “Aletheia” the Greek word for “Truth”. In the opening line declared: ‘Man is the measure of all things: of the things which are, that they are, and of the things which are not, that they are not.’ His point was that truth and falsehood are determined not by objective truth, but from a person’s own perspective. He gained quite a following until the Philosopher Plato came onto the scene. Plato argued that If every truth claim is relative then this must also apply to Protagoras’ own claim that truth is relative. Plato saw something that later philosophers and academics forgot - Relativism dies as soon as it is asserted. In the early 1900’s Relativism made a strong resurgence in the realm of Anthropology. German-born Franz Boas and the Americans Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead suggested that no one culture had the right to critique another. In 1947, the American Anthropological Association issued a statement that moral values are relative to individual cultures and should not be thought to apply universally. Ironically, this was issued on the heels of the Jewish Holocaust. The most universally condemned act of the 20th Century. WHAT THSE ANTHROPOLOGISTS HAVE SAID OF CULTURE, SOME MODERN DAY INFLUENCERS HAVE APPLIED TO THE INDIVIDUAL. The charge was led by the first Super-Influencer herself Oprah Winfrey when she launched this revival or relativism with her speech at the 2018 Golden Globe awards making the statement, "What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have." The idea of truth being relative is remarkably dangerous. But as that concept is applied to RELIGION it is not only dangerous, it is damning. Yet, this concept is almost universally held. Joe Klein, a writer from Time Magazine has gone so far as to say, ”anyone who believes that “there are superior and inferior religions” is a right-wing extremist”. ILLUSTRATION: 50 years ago two people of two faiths would come together and say “You may be wrong and I may be right, or I may be right on you may be wrong, but it is not possible for both of us to be right”. That is called the, “Law on Non-Contradiction” which states that two opposing views cannot be equally true at the same time and in the same way. Even the Roman Catholic Pope Francis has stated in a 2015 open letter to the founder of, “La Repubblica” an Italian Newspaper that, "Non-Believers would be forgiven by God if they simply followed their consciences” and “Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.” In other words, what matters is not your personal faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, but rather you obedience to YOUR TRUTH as you see it.

Topics

• Jesus Christ