THE SLIPPERY SLOPE OF CULTURAL MAJORITY

The church has often been labeled “out of touch” when it takes a position on an issue contrary to the cultural majority. You might hear someone say, “Almost everyone agrees on this. Why are you refusing to come around?” In almost every conversation like this one, my goal isn’t to convince the other person to see things the way I see it. The goal needs to be more modest.

So I might respond like this: “Just because the cultural majority believe ‘X’ is acceptable doesn’t mean it is. We could visit numerous African, South American, and Middle Eastern cultures where the cultural majority believe ‘X’ is wrong. Why should American culture trump African culture? Are you saying American culture is right and the others are wrong? Are you saying American culture is superior to other cultures?”

In all likelihood, this is going to cause the other person to back peddle a little bit. Modern people don’t want to be labeled as ethnocentrists, much less racists, the ethnocentrists’ cousin. The goal isn’t to convince them of my view. The goal is to get them to see the darker implications of the view they espouse and to which they are blind.

This is the slippery slope of using cultural majority to determine morality. Inevitably, there is a cultural majority in the world somewhere that is diametrically opposed to your cultural majority. Who wins? Who’s right?  

As Christians then, this is exactly why we need an external, objective, unchanging standard to appeal to, namely, the Bible. If you don’t have an external, objective, unchanging standard, morality is legislated by cultural majority or individual preference or some combination of both.

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