"There are many out there who see Christianity as being mainly about teaching us how to be better people."

Amy Hall:

There are many out there who see Christianity as being mainly about teaching us how to be better people. Sadly, this includes a large number of pastors who are passing on this too-common theology of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. There’s a good possibility that many of these pastors are not doing this purposely, but because their preaching focuses on moral lessons, their congregations learn that the moral lessons are what’s important.

I’m convinced that this moralistic focus is a major contributor to a relativistic view of religion amongst Christians. After all, if the goal of religion is to teach us to be good people, one religion can do this as well as another. What reason do we have to say one is right and the other wrong if they’re all right in the way that matters?

This is why I think the religious relativism of Christians is but a symptom pointing to a much deeper problem—a lack of understanding of the Gospel, a lack of knowing that Christianity depends on something objective happening outside of ourselves rather than being just a set of good rules to live by.

The Christianity of the Bible, when it’s explicitly taught, leaves no room for relativism because it depends on an objective event that accomplished a particular purpose for us.

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