William D. Watkins must have spent months or years compiling the material in his book, The New Absolutes, published just a few months ago. Most of the chapters average between 50 and 100 endnotes. Although some things may be alluded to, most of the time the reader will find a direct quotation.
Although the book is extremely current (referring to events as recent as last summer), it also provides source material that should be of help for years to come. One excellent feature is the “Index of Proper Names,” which will enable the reader to quickly find any individual discussed or quoted from.
The book’s 319 pages are packed with powerful information presented in a very readable style (it’s difficult to put down!), beginning with the author’s discussion with a classmate who claimed to be God. The dedication is of interest in that it sets the tone for the book:
To Dr. James Slinger
The first person to give me sound philosophical reasons to believe in absolute truth and universal moral prescriptions.
While the book compares relativism with moral absolutes, it is not a book of theory but rather one that is thoroughly practical. Part One, “Reality in the Balance,” introduces the subject by listing some quotes most people have heard, some of which are listed below.
“What’s true for you may not be true for me.”
“One person’s art is another person’s pornography.”
“There are no objective morals, just differing opinions.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
“If it feels right, do it” (21).
All of these phrases and slogans are designed to promote moral relativism. While it is true that we all have many preferences based on personal taste, such scarcely proves that nothing can be morally and objectively true–regardless of man’s personal opinions. There are mathematical, scientific, and spiritual truths which are true no matter what someone’s personal opinion of them is.
Water is composed of two hydrogen elements and one oxygen even if someone “feels” that there should be two parts oxygen to one part hydrogen. Using the common number base of ten, 2 plus 2 will always equal 4 even if somebody thinks that’s not fair. Those who obey the gospel from the heart (Rom. 6:17-18) shall be saved (Mark 16:16), and those who refuse to do so shall suffer eternal condemnation whether or not anybody agrees with God on the matter.
The author demonstrates the importance of this subject by pointing out that, according to a Barna survey, even among those who fancy themselves as conservative evangelicals, who believe that “the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches”–even among these, 42% reject the concept of absolute truth (27). What a frightening (not to mention contradictory) thought!
Moral relativism may be defined by the last verse in the book of Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (21:25). In other words, we submit to laws and government only if we feel like it. James Patterson and Peter Kim, authors of the book, The Day America Told the Truth, commented on the results of their survey:
We are the law unto ourselves. We have made ourselves authority over church and God. We have made ourselves the clear authority over the government. We have made ourselves the authority over laws and the police (29).
Although we might not be surprised at this attitude toward civil law (in spite of the fact that the Bible clearly teaches us to respect and abide by it–1 Peter 2:13-17), 84% of people surveyed said “they would violate the established rules of their religion” (29). One would think that we, not Jesus, were going to judge ourselves on Judgment Day (John 5:27 & 12:48). Most of us, apparently, think we have a perfect right to sit in judgment of God and His Divine teachings; from whence comes this presumptuous ability? We feel empowered by the philosophy of this age; as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. observed: “Relativism is the American way” (29).
Although the leaders of moral relativism preach that there are no absolutes, they have merely replaced Biblical truths with secular speculations. The author devotes a chapter to each of the ten “new absolutes.” The first of these is: “Religion is the bane of public life; so for the public good it should be banned from the public square.”
Attention is devoted in this chapter to the ACLU and the distortion of the First Amendment. With nearly fanatical pursuit, ACLU lawyers and sympathetic courts have accomplished the following feats.
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s creation of a public school district that benefited a Hasidic Jewish community’s attempt to provide quality education for two hundred handicapped and learning disabled children (51).
Twenty-four pro-life Christians were arrested and imprisoned in Atlanta, Georgia, because they were praying on a public sidewalk near an abortion facility (51).
. . . in Texas, a fifty-seven-year-old grandmother “was handcuffed, strip-searched, and thrown in an unheated jail cell for the ‘crime’ of passing out religious tracts on the public roadway across from a high school” (52).
. . . a “federal court saw that ‘nothing could be more dangerous’ than an adolescent seeing the football captain, the student body president, or ‘the leading actress in a dramatic production participating in communal prayer meetings in the captive audience setting of a school'” (52).
The judge threw out the case because of this incident. He held that “‘consulting a Bible during jury deliberations breaches the separation of church and state guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution'” (52).
Six students in Illinois were arrested, detained in squad cars, and threatened with mace all because they prayed around their school’s flagpole as part of an annual national event called “See you at the flagpole” (54).
When this case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, “the attorney for the school board and the State of New York admitted that the board would allow communists, atheists, and agnostics in their school auditorium after school hours to address family issues and even to proselytize against religion but that they would not allow even a single minister to debate a room full of atheists in front of an atheist audience” (55).
These are just a smattering of some of the lunacies being “justified” by the first amendment. The author then presents a historical perspective of what the founding fathers really believed; he shows how their actions were consistent with those beliefs.
The second absolute of the modern era is: “Human life, which begins and ends when certain individuals or groups decide it does, is valuable as long as it is wanted” (65). The author spotlights some of the individuals who have brought us to our current “low” view of life: Thomas Malthus (69-73), Charles Darwin (73-77), and Margaret Sanger (77-83). The summaries are brief yet packed with information–and pertinent to understanding how we arrived at moral relativism.
The third new absolute is: “Marriage is a human contract made between any two people, and either party can terminate it for any reason” (89). Knowing that the philosophy of marriage had changed somewhat, the author was shocked to find out that in his daughter’s class at school only two children did NOT have parents who had divorced–and the other teenager’s father had died a year earlier (89).
Many useful facts and statistics are included, some of which are that the average length of first marriages is eight years,the average length of second marriages is six years (93), and the divorce rate is about 50% higher for those who live together first than for those who do not (94).
“Family is any grouping of two or more people with or without children” is the fourth new absolute. This new definition is obviously intended to include homosexuals. The author provides an historical look at family life in Rome and shows how Christianity changed the pagan concepts of the family. In the past thirty years, however, we have sadly degenerated to that which was rightly left behind.
“Love the One You’re With,” the name of the 1970 Stephen Stills’ hit, was selected as the title of the chapter dealing with the fifth new absolute: “Sexual intercourse is permissible regardless of marital status” (113). Many of the statistics presented reflect about what we would think of American sexuality, but some are surprising, such as a 1990 study in which 40% of girls said they were NOT virgins by the ninth grade (121). Imagine the forces that must be at work to cause nearly half of all young girls to engage in sexual activity by the age of 14! We have certainly come a long way since 1890 when fornication was prosecuted as a crime (119).
This chapter also contains an overview of the career of Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who has made such profound statements as “we can’t legislate morals” (127) and “it’s time to teach them [teenagers] what to do in the backseat” (124). When her sex education policies and programs were instituted in Arkansas, teen pregnancy rose 15%, cases of syphilis “skyrocketed 130 percent, and HIV infection went up even higher to 150 percent” (125). However, it wasn’t her fault; she blamed “poverty and ignorance and the Bible-belt mentality” (126). Fortunately, she is no longer “fixing” America.
The sixth new absolute is “All forms and combinations of sexual activity are moral as long as they occur between consenting parties” (131). A special profile of Alfred Kinsey is included, along with his “contributions” to our current sexually-deviant society (133-40). Lest anyone think that perverted sexual relations will not affect most of society, the author relates that in Boston some high schools “give official recognition to students from their campuses who march in the annual Boston Gay Pride parade,” and in New York there is a Harvey Milk High School that “provides ‘support and service’ for homosexual and bisexual youth” (145).
Worse yet is the movement seeking to decriminalize pedophilia. Dr. John Money, professor emeritus of no less an institution than Johns Hopkins University, thinks that ten-year-old boys ought to be allowed to develop erotic relationships with older men (148). A magazine devoted to this purpose, called Paedika, although published in the Netherlands, includes a number of professors from American universities on its editorial board (270). If we ever descend to such a sleazy level, the paganization of America will be just about complete.
New absolute #7 is: “Women are oppressed by men and must liberate themselves by controlling their own bodies and therefore their destinies” (149). This chapter includes some fascinating perspectives about abortion and a case study of Gloria Steinem (160-65). One of Catharine MacKinnon’s outrageous statements is also cited: “Feminism stresses the indistinguishablilty of prostitution, marriage, and sexual harassment” (167). If they are all the same, it kind of makes a person wonder why she elected to become married.
The new absolute regarding race is: “All human beings are created equal and should therefore be treated with dignity and respect, but people of color should receive preferential treatment” (171). A history of slavery is given and explained (but not defended). The author also shows some of the forces that have led to the disintegration of black families. Tragically, “almost seven out of every ten black births are illegitimate,” “more black males are in prison than in college,” and “ninety-three percent of black murder victims were killed by blacks in cases where there was a single offender and a single victim” (188). Not too many decades ago black families were stable; this information is thought-provoking.
The ninth new absolute is: “Non-Western societies and other oppressed peoples and their heritage should be studied and valued above Western civilization” (193). Also known as multi-culturalism, the thrust of this movement is to rewrite history, downplay famous heroes of the past, and replace them with studies about women and minorities. One textbook produced for 5th-6th graders focuses on a ten-year-old Japanese girl who dies painfully from radiation as a result of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima; nothing is said about Pearl Harbor or the Bataan death march (203).
The final new absolute considered is: “Only those viewpoints deemed politically correct should be tolerated and encouraged to prevail” (207). Basically, this view allows for the expression of all ideas–except Christian ones. Included in the chapter are discussion of the media’s claim that racial hatred was causing the burning of black churches last summer (214-18), efforts of homosexuals to find someone to persecute them (218-20), and the judicial activism of the Supreme Court (220-22).
The final two chapters of the book provide hope that things will change for the better. The basic idea is that the politically-correct new absolutes will fall from their own weight–that sooner or later people will recognize that lawlessness doesn’t work. It is, of course, possible for a nation to repent (Nineveh, for example), but some (such as Sodom) degenerate toward destruction.
Ten forms of immorality are common to the downfall of several nations; Carle Zimmerman wrote of these in Family and Civilization, published in 1947. Among the ten are “quick, easy, no-fault divorces” and “common acceptance of all forms of sex perversions” (236-37). These two alone give us a fair estimation of where we are. But notice this positive observation: “Zimmerman points out that after the Roman Empire fell, the outside force that restored social and family order was the Christian church” (239).
The endnotes frequently contain additional, helpful information and source material. This book can probably be found in most “Christian” bookstores. It costs about $20 and is easily worth such an amount. The author is the founding editor of Liberty, Life and Family Journal.