NEWS ANALYSIS: Under Benedict, the New Buzzword Is “Relativism’’

c. 2005 Beliefnet (UNDATED) Just before he led the cardinals into sequester in the Sistine Chapel on Monday, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger laid down the theological gauntlet, calling upon the church to wield Jesus Christ as a shield against a “dictatorship of relativism.” He depicted the church as a “little boat of Christian thought” tossed by […]

c. 2005 Beliefnet

(UNDATED) Just before he led the cardinals into sequester in the Sistine Chapel on Monday, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger laid down the theological gauntlet, calling upon the church to wield Jesus Christ as a shield against a “dictatorship of relativism.”

He depicted the church as a “little boat of Christian thought” tossed by waves of “extreme” schools of modern thought, identified as Marxism, liberalism, libertinism, collectivism and “radical individualism.”


Two days later, he emerged Pope Benedict XVI _ and that term, relativism, suddenly became an important key to understanding the direction the new pope will take his church.

So what does it mean?

In a nutshell, relativism is the idea that moral principles are based on your culture (such as where and when you live, your education, your age and your level of wealth) and therefore subject to individual choice. Taken to an extreme, a moral relativist believes there are no rules governing right and wrong.

People who oppose moral relativism say that unless global society clearly defines right and wrong _ for instance, prohibiting polygamy, or for that matter, gay marriage _ we head down a treacherous path. You will often hear opponents of gay marriage say that if we permit that, what stops society ultimately from permitting bestiality?

This is why those who wring their hands over “moral relativism” also often say that by not stopping Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunctions,” society has inevitably allowed itself to slide into pornography, premarital sex, abortion-on-demand, and assisted suicide.

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Americans have heard the term because evangelical Christians and even President Bush often use it to describe their view of American culture. In fact, when Bush returned from Pope John Paul II’s funeral, he had this to say: “I would define Pope John Paul II as a clear thinker who was like a rock. Tides of moral relativism kind of washed around him, but he stood strong.”

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, talks frequently about the concept. In a 1998 speech, he talked about the fears of his audience: “They love their God and they are very, very concerned about what’s happening today. They see this moral freefall. They see this moral relativism and they’re very concerned about it. It contradicts everything they stand for and they also feel under attack. … They feel the culture has got their families.”

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Pope Benedict XVI and others who oppose relativism say that modern society, especially in North America and Europe, is filled with the influences of evil _ and that evil must be actively battled. Christianity, they say, is the only possible victor.


Evangelicals tend to see Christian belief and practice as a method for avoiding evil and immorality _ that’s what Bush means when he says John Paul II stood against moral relativism.

But Pope Benedict means something slightly different and perhaps deeper. He is most worried about relativism arising from pluralism, the idea that other religions are valid ways of searching for meaning.

“He thinks relativism is something that happens when people live in pluralism,” says William Portier, a theologian at the University of Dayton who specializes in Catholic intellectual thought. “It’s like an occupational hazard _ you begin to think in this way because you have to live with all these different people.”

Portier says he frequently sees this “occupational hazard” among his students. “They don’t want to say that someone else is wrong,” says Portier, who has taught for more than 30 years. “It’s because they live in this incredibly chaotic, pluralistic, fragmented world. And they don’t want anybody to say they’re wrong either.”

In a 2002 interview, then-Cardinal Ratzinger said this: “Christ is totally different from all the founders of other religions, and he cannot be reduced to a Buddha, a Socrates or a Confucius. He is really the bridge between heaven and earth, the light of truth who has appeared to us. The gift of knowing Jesus does not mean that there are no important fragments of truth in other religions. In the light of Christ, we can establish a fruitful dialogue with a point of reference in which we can see how all these fragments of truth contribute to greater depth in our faith and to an authentic spiritual community of humanity.”

In other words, the new pope believes the source of God’s saving power comes through Jesus, and by extension through the Catholic Church. While he believes God’s presence exists in other religions (and other Christian denominations), he says that presence exists because of Jesus. Therefore, whatever truth is found in Buddhism or Hinduism, or any other religion, is preparation for their adherents to become Christian, and ultimately Catholic.


Taking that argument a step further, Benedict believes that pure Christianity _ channeled through the Catholic Church _ must remain a bulwark in order to stop the immorality that can naturally flow from giving other faiths _ or the no-faith option of secularism _ equal footing with Christianity.

In 1997, then-Cardinal Ratzinger described relativism as “the central problem of the faith at the present time.” And in an interview last year, he said much the same thing. “Today it is regarded an act of pride, incompatible with tolerance, to think that we have really received the truth of the Lord. However, it seems that, to be tolerant, all religions and cultures must be considered equal. In this context, to believe (in Christ alone) is an act that becomes increasingly difficult.”

The main reason for his concern is his childhood in Nazi Germany _ where Christianity was appropriated by a corrupt ideology _ and then his adulthood in the increasingly faithless Europe. He was particularly disturbed by the Marxism and atheism of the 1968 student protests in Europe. Today he is concerned about Europe’s emptying churches and increasing secularism.

“Europe is a considered a historically Christian society,” notes Portier. “The new pope is asking, `Is it possible to reevangelize Europe and regain it for Christianity?’ That would require doctrinal clarity.”

Ratzinger is perhaps best known for his views because of Dominus Iesus (“Jesus Is Lord”), the 2000 document he primarily authored that says the Catholic Church “rules out, in a radical way, that mentality of indifferentism `characterized by a religious relativism which leads to the belief that one religion is as good as another.”

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One of the theologians the new pope has accused of “relativism” is Paul Knitter, theology professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati. Knitter says Benedict misunderstands his theology. Knitter says the sort of pluralism he promotes advances the view that many religions are valid ways of searching for meaning. But Ratzinger, says Knitter, thinks that means all religions are the same _ which is not what Knitter and other Catholic theologians are saying at all.


“What I’m trying to say is no religion, including my own, can hold itself up as the only way to God or as having the fullness of truth,” he says. “That’s impossible because all religions are human enterprises, and that means they’re limited. Pluralism states there are many valid religions, and no religion can set itself up as superior. And that (stance) is what Pope Benedict is so afraid of.”

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But is moral relativism really all that bad? Essentially, what it means is allowing others the freedom to determine their own set of values. Moral relativists argue that with 6 billion people on Earth, there can be no “one size fits all” set of behaviors or beliefs. Further, moral relativists are not saying that anyone can do anything _ they’re saying that humans should be constrained by values they’ve developed through experience, reason and contemplation.

Further, moral relativism recognizes an undeniable truth: society’s values change over time. Slavery and sacrificing your first-born (both practices found in the Bible) are no longer acceptable. By trying to hold to absolute values, you’re closing off the possibility of humanity making advances in our moral understanding.

So what will Pope Benedict XVI do about these competing visions of truth? Will he clamp down, as liberals fear? Or will he make Christian theology unbending, yet superior, as conservatives hope?

“He’ll try to be clear, and he’ll try to be attractive,” says Portier. “The best apologetic is holiness and spiritual attractiveness, spiritual beauty. He’s got to go with that, somehow, because to approach pluralism as a hated theoretical idea is not going to get him far.”

KE/JL END CALDWELL

(Deborah Caldwell is senior editor and national correspondent at Beliefnet.)

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