The Commentary

Cultural relativism is the idea that no culture should be seen as superior to another. It is the inevitable concomitant of the postmodern mindset which denies the possibility of truth which is true for everybody.

The evidence of cultural relativism in social policy — multiculturalism we call it — is all around us in our land today. At one level it is a concept with which Christians should be very comfortable. We believe that all people of whatever race or culture are created equal in the image of God. We believe that God loves the whole world. A proper tolerance is, therefore, something for which we should work. The idea generally that minorities from different backgrounds should not face unfair discrimination and that all people should be treated with respect is something the Bible argues for very clearly, e.g. Exodus 22.21; Psalm 94.3,6,7. And, indeed, cross-cultural interchange can be a very healthy and rewarding enterprise. But at another level there is a different kind of multiculturalism. It is an ideology which looks not just to respect other cultures but insists they must be actively promoted. This kind of multiculturalism is beginning to cause big problems to surface.

Local election results

There is a difference between living peacefully alongside different people and the State positively sponsoring cultures from outside. The problem comes because of the secular / post-modern context of today’s Britain. Whereas the Bible looks for equal treatment for all under the law, we now live in a country which is not at all sure what the law should be. We have abandoned belief in God whose laws apply to all (Romans 2.12-15). It follows then that we must accept that our law is just the product of our culture. Because all cultures have different standards and no culture is superior or inferior to another, it is impossible to say what is truly right and what is wrong. With that kind of outlook who has the right to impose ‘our laws’ on other people? Shouldn’t we be equally in favour of all customs?

Hence it is that many critics argue that this kind of ideology of multiculturalism has become an unhelpful force, and that its promotion is becoming very divisive. The State insists that other cultures must not simply be respected but must be positively promoted and sometimes uses its financial muscle to do that. Some would say this not only patronises ethnic minorities but has pitted people of different backgrounds against each other, often unfairly denigrating the culture of the indigenous people and so actually serving to exacerbate racism. It is this, it seems, which lies behind the dreadful spectacle of the rise in popularity of the BNP in Barking, Stoke and other places at the recent local elections in May. The white working-class population say they have been made to feel as if they don’t matter, and so have become enamoured with the far right.

Providing core values?

Western culture has become very unsure of itself. The historian R.H. Tawney wrote: ‘What a community requires…is a common culture, be-cause, without it, it is not a community at all.’ Whereas the Bible would not want to impose a cultural straight-jacket — indeed the best of many different cultures it seems will be part of heaven (Revelation 21.24) — yet there must be an agreed framework, or set of core values which a whole society signs up to. But postmodernism cannot provide such a thing. Is our country beginning to fragment? If it is then it will be just another way in which secularism once again will have betrayed its adherents.

Multiculturalism?

Local election results

Providing core values?

John Benton

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