True for You (but not for Me)
What do I mean? Well, let’s take the idea that right and wrong are just a lifestyle choice. This is OK up to a point, but all of us have some things that we think are really wrong. For example, we don’t think that pedophilia is just an innocent lifestyle choice. We believe that it is really wrong—wrong always and everywhere.
In this kind of world, what if my lifestyle choice contradicts yours? What if—to put crudely—I don’t like who you are? What if I don’t like your gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation, or religion? What basis is there for tolerance and mutual respect? There is none. So all we are left with is that whoever has the most power comes out best—”Might is Right”. But we know intuitively that might isn’t right, and that power alone is not enough. We’ve seen where that leads to, in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
We know that power alone is not enough. We know that right and wrong are not just a lifestyle choice. And we can’t live with the idea that truth is just a matter of opinion.
Your bank manager calls you in, and tells you you are £500 over your spending limit. You reply: “That may be what’s true for you, but what’s true for me is that I’m £2000 in credit.” He’d laugh at you—and then he’d send for the men in white coats.
Or you go and stand on a tower block, and look over the edge, and say: “Well, gravity may be true for you, but it isn’t true for me.” And to prove your point, you jump off. What happens? You accelerate towards the ground at just the same rate whether you believe in gravity or not—because gravity describes the way the universe really is. And whatever we say, we know that some things really are true, whether or not we believe them.
So we can’t live as if right and wrong, truth and falsehood, are just matters of opinion and choice.
What about the idea that Christian faith is just a private matter—something you can take up if it “works for you?”
The Christian message claims to be not just something that helps me psychologically, but something that is fundamentally real, because it comes from God himself—a God who is really there, and who really has spoken. It is something that is true for everyone, whether or not they believe it, because it is rooted in the facts—in something that God has done in history, through the birth and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
This is a matter of facts—of evidence—not just a matter of “I’m so glad it helps you.” So we need to look at the evidence. And if the evidence does point to the reality of God and the truth of Jesus Christ (as it does) then we can not just shrug it off by saying “that’s fine for you, but it isn’t for me.” Because if it is true, it’s true for everyone, everywhere, always. And that means that all of us need to examine the evidence and make up our minds about it.
From www.Facingthechallenge.org
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