Pluralistic Society Or A Christ
Question #7 ISN’T IT BETTER TO LIVE IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY RATHER THAN A CHRISTIAN NATION?
The question above can be answered only if we come to grips with the myth of the greatness of the pluralistic society. Many Christians today have been taught that it is good to live in a “do your own thing” society where “anything goes” because that protects their liberty to worship and preach the Gospel. The argument goes like this: “I’ll protect your right to sell pornographic literature and movies as long as you will let me preach Jesus.”
The Counter Culture Blues
Barbara Morris in her book, Change Agents in the Schools, points to the fact that the public schools have become value changers, not just tools of education. In “values clarification” classes students are taught that there are no more absolutes in our “evolutionary,” pluralistic world. For example, our children our taught that while we may not think it is right to kill grandmothers “by cultural consensus” (at least not yet), it may be fine for some cultures which have practiced it as a way of life for centuries. that is the type of reasoning used.
Oftentimes the Christian who finds the philosophy of relativism personally offensive gives in to it culturally because he has been conditioned by his education to accept the non-Christian culture as the norm.
To complicate the problem, many Christians in the twentieth century have been taught that the world (GOd’s created world) is evil and under the control of Satan. We, as Christians, are relegated to the status of misfits who can only hope to be a counter-culture. As a result of this attitude, many Christians pre-suppose the impossibility of a Christian nation because they believe the above distortions. The Bible teaches the opposite to be true.
Every nation is called upon to obey Jesus Christ (Psalm 2:10-12): “Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way’ when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.”
This is not a call to build pluralistic societies but godly ones, which become disciples of our Lord: in other words, Christian nations.
In fact, in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 where we are given our marching orders, Jesus calls us to teach (make disciples of ) the nations, teaching them to obey all that He has commanded.
There is no neutrality with God, Either a nation will be built upon a foundation of God’s Word or it will be destroyed by “kindling the Son’s wrath.” A pluralistic society is just another term for a Christian nation that is on its way to becoming a humanistic society devoted to war with the Gospel. English historian E.R. Norman has observed: “pluralism is a word society employs during the transition from one orthodoxy to another ”
Whether you are a Christian or not, as you read this study guide, consider this warning: If we abandon our Biblical roots for pluralism, we will soon lose all the attending benefits of Christian civilization such as law, absolute moral standards, a sound economy, a limited government, and any vestige of liberty that we still maintain.
The restoration of our land will not be accomplished by bartering with the devil for equal time. We must lead out society through the strength of our character, our Biblical reasoning and action, and our financial resources if there is to be liberty for either the righteous or the unrighteous. Proverbs 29:2 says that “when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.”
As a Christians we cannot hide behind the excuse that Satan rules the day, because he does not. We must work to restore our Republic which rightly belongs to God, not the devil. Unbelievers also should come to grips with the facts of history which show that only in a Christian Republic will their liberty of conscience be guaranteed. Pluralism, on the other hand, will lead us to tyranny. For its chaos of relative values leading to anarchy will ultimately succumb to some form of tyranny.
Some will say, “don’t we have greater liberty today under pluralism?” Not true! Our founders would stand on another Lexington Green if they were here today and saw us submitting to 40% confiscation of our property through government taxes, the murder of 15 million babies through abortion taking from them their lives and liberty, and the State propagandizing the youth of our nation in the religion of secular humanism while forcing the Bible and prayer to be taken out of our schools. We are not truly free today. Worse is coming if we do not restore our Christian nation through rebuilding the character of the American Christian.
Dr. Jedediah Morse, on April 25, 1799, summarized the decision that we face today: “To the kindly influence for Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom, and approximate the miseries of complete despotism.”
The following statement by the eminent professor and theologian, Charles Hodge, Princeton Seminary, in 1876, illustrates the cognent and balanced thinking that once prevailed concerning our nation and its purpose. If we are to restore our nation, we must heed the words of men such as Rev. Hodge: The proposition that the United States of America are a Christian and Protestant nation, is not so much the assertion of a principle as the statement of fact. The fact is not simply that the great majority of the people are Christians and Protestants, but that the organic life, the institutions, laws, judicial, or executive, is, and of right should be. and in fact must be, in accordance with the principles of Protestant Christianity. “When Protestant Christians came to this country they possessed and subdued the land. They worshipped God, and His Son Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the World, and acknowledged the Scriptures to be the rule of their faith and practice. They introduced their religion into their families, their schools, and their colleges. They abstained from all ordinary business on the Lord’s Day, and devoted it to religion. They build churches, erected school-houses, and taught their children to read the Bible and to receive and obey it as the Word of God. They formed themselves as Christians into municipal and state organizations. They acknowledged God in their legislative assemblies. They prescribed oaths to be taken in His name. They closed their courts, their places of business, their legislatures, and all places under public control, on the Lord’s Day. They declared Christianity to be part of the common law of the land. in the process of time thousands have come among us, who are neither Protestant nor Christians..All are welcomed; all are admitted to equal rights and privileges. All are allowed to acquire property, and to vote in every election, made eligible to all offices, and invested with equal influence in all public affairs. All are allowed to worship as they please, or not to worship at all, if they see fit. No man is molested for his religion or for his want of religion. No man is required to profess any form of faith, or to join any religious association. More, however, is demanded. The infidel demands that the government should be conducted on the principle that Christianity is false. The atheist demands that it should be conducted on the assumption that there is no God, and the positivist on the principle that men are no free agents. The sufficient answer to all this is that it cannot possibly be done.”