Laurence A. Justice

Exodus 20:3 “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” For Christians today multiculturalism is a widely used but little understood term. Multiculturalism has found its way into our institutions and into our everyday lives yet the great majority don’t even seem to realize it. Our children have been taught this philosophy in the schools. Hollywood and the whole entertainment industry are constantly propagandizing the public with its principles. Liberalism and ecumenicalism have even brought multiculturalism into the churches. So pervasive has multiculturalism become that it has turned our Western civilization upside down in one generation. Christians need to be aware of multiculturalism and to understand it and to act biblically in relation to it if we are to be pleasing to God.

I have in my possession several different dictionaries of the English language. No dictionary that I own defines multiculturalism, indicating that this is something that has come to prominence just in the present generation. Multiculturalism is a worldview that declares that all human cultures and moral codes, no matter how ennobling or how rotten, they are equally valid. It believes that all human cultures are of the same worth. The basic message of multiculturalism is that all cultures are equally good and beneficent, no matter how violent or oppressive. Ruthless, repressive, backward cultures are seen as equal to Western civilization. Every culture is seen to be correct by its own standards and thus not to be judged by others. Westerners have no right to judge other cultures because they are of as much value as our own Christian culture. Multiculturalism calls for diversity which means that they will accept any religion and any culture. The obvious faults and shortcomings of non-Christian cultures are ignored and even praised.

Multiculturalism says that there is no absolute truth, only personal preferences and private opinions, each of which is as good as any other if believed sincerely. We therefore must be neutral and tolerant of all aspects of all human cultures and religions. One pundit has correctly called multiculturalism, hyper-tolerance. Multiculturalists view the displacement of paganism by Christianity as an embarrassment and an injustice to paganism. Another name for multiculturalism is PC or political correctness. Multiculturalism started on our college campuses during the 1960’s. It has been brought in and continually promoted through the universities, the public schools and the media. The entertainment industry which is now without question the dominant force in our culture, is thoroughly multicultural in outlook. Even many of our churches have been permeated by the multicultural worldview. An example of this is seen in an editorial by Diane West that appeared on Townhall.com March 10, 2007 and I quote: “While British authorities were sifting through the rubble of a terrorist bombing in London, an Anglican priest in a church within sight of that investigation urged his flock to ‘rejoice in the capital’s rich diversity of cultures, traditions, ethnic groups and faiths." ” By capturing and using these institutions our historic spiritual and moral values are being rapidly broken down.

Multiculturalism would place the one true God next to all of the idols of this pluralistic age instead of above them. According to the scriptures there is only one true God and all men are called upon to worship Him alone. It is the duty of all men to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God. The Triune God of biblical Christianity is the only true God!  He says in Isaiah 44:6, “…Beside Me there is no God!” In Isaiah 46:9 Jehovah God says, “I am God and there is none else.” In Psalm 86:10 the Psalmist says to Jehovah, “Thou are God alone! Allah does not exist! There is one God. He is revealed in His word. His names are revealed in that word and Allah is not among those names. Hindus have so many gods they are hard to count! The first commandment condemns all other gods, religious or material. In our text in Exodus 20:3 Jehovah God says, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” In Exodus 34:14 Jehovah God says, “…Thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”

Christianity has the only true God and all other gods are idols. Turn to I Chronicles 16:26-30. This passage calls all men and nations to worship this one true God of the Bible. “For all the gods of the people are idols: but the LORD made the heavens. Glory and honor are in His presence; strength and gladness are in His place. Give unto the LORD, ye kindreds of the people, give unto the LORD glory and strength. Give unto the LORD the glory due unto His name: bring an offering, and come before Him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. Fear before Him, all the earth…”The apostle Paul did not recognize the culture of the Athenians as equal to his. He called on the Athenians to turn from their idol worship and worship the one true God. He declared to the idolatrous Athenians in Acts 17:28-29 that “…in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” Paul called for these pagan Athenians to reject their gods and trust in the risen Christ. This would certainly be a politically incorrect message today! Many pastors and evangelists and theologians today have folded under the pressure of multiculturalism. Here’s what Billy Graham said in an article in McCall’s Magazine dated January 1978. The title of the article was “I Can’t Play God Anymore.” “I used to believe that pagans in far-off countries were lost - were going to hell - if they did not have the gospel of Jesus Christ preached to them. I no longer believe that. I believe there are other ways of recognizing the existence of God – through nature, for instance – and plenty of other opportunities therefore of saying ‘Yes’ to God…I have never supported Jewish missions…”Christianity is the one true religion! It is true, not only for Christians but for all men. God’s word teaches and Christians proclaim the uniqueness and exclusiveness of the Christian religion! God’s preachers have always declared the fact that biblical Christianity is the one true religion in this world but many preachers today would not dare to say such a thing. Instead they put Christianity into a class with all the other religions of this world. The cowardly Lutheran Christian minister who spoke for Christianity at the Virginia Tech convocation after the terrible campus massacre there said only politically correct things and didn’t even mention the name of Jesus Christ after whom his very religion is named.

God’s word teaches that Jesus Christ is the only Savior! As God, He created everything and thus is the source of everything. Jesus Christ is God incarnate, God come in the flesh. John 1:14 has reference to this fact when it says, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” One must see Jesus Christ to see God because Jesus Christ is God in the flesh! John 1:18 says, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him (or led Him forth or manifested or revealed Him).” The Lord Jesus Himself says in John 14:9, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. ”Man is a sinner, ruined by the fall, full of guilt and bound for hell, completely unable to save or help save himself. Man needs a Savior to deliver him from his guilt and penalty and slavery to sin. In Jesus Christ God became flesh, died for sins and rose again to save sinners. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross is the only sacrifice that a holy and righteous God will accept for sinners. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves that everything He said and claimed is true. Matthew 1:21 says that the name of Jesus means Savior. Here the angel says to Joseph before Christ’s birth,“…thou shalt call His name JESUS: for (or because) He shall save His people from their sins.” God’s word tells us that only Jesus Christ can save and that there is no salvation apart from Him. In John 14:6 the Lord Jesus Himself says, “…I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” Acts 4:12 says in speaking of Jesus Christ, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” All who are ever saved must enter through the narrow gate of faith in Jesus Christ the Savior. The Buddhist must believe in Jesus Christ in order to be saved! So must the Shinto and the Jew and the Muslim. Biblical Christianity has the only true Savior and all other saviors lead their followers to eternal ruin! The Lord Jesus promises eternal condemnation to those who do not believe that He is the Savior. John 8:24 says, “I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins. ”The Holy Bible is the one true religious book! Most religions claim their own sacred books. Islam has its Koran and Mormonism has its Book of Mormon. But there is only one holy book that comes from God, only one written revelation from God and that is the Bible. Christianity has the only true and infallible book. Only the Bible is God’s inerrant and infallible word for man. Only Christianity is based on a book whose every word is inspired or breathed out by God. II Timothy 3:16 says that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God…” Jesus Christ has emphatically declared that God’s written word is the truth. Look at John 17:17 where he says, “Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth.” God’s book is the only book that reveals true salvation in Jesus Christ. The Bible is the written record of the doing, dying and rising from the dead of Jesus Christ for the salvation of sinners.

Moral relativists insist that no universal standard exists by which to assess the truth of an ethical proposition. Moral values are applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences. In other words no system of morality or code of ethics is universally binding on all men! All truths are created by humans, the multiculturalists say and thus we cannot judge one truth as being superior to another. I am not bound by any particular moral code as an absolute standard because there is no absolute standard of right and wrong! We all as individuals are the final judges of how we should live. This means that your code of ethics is as good as mine and mine is as good as yours! Because of this we are often asked to tolerate sin under the guise of tolerating cultural diversity. Multiculturalists often say that what we need is to “understand” other cultures and view their wicked, immoral, and even terrorist acts “in context. ”The other day I watched a special on the National Geographic channel on the Aztec Indians in Mexico. The program made no reference to the heinous and morally reprehensible nature of their mass human sacrifices in which the hearts were cut out of their victims while they were still alive in order to appease their gods. The Islamic culture that practices female genital mutilation is seen by multiculturalists as not to be criticized because after all we celebrate diversity! The heinous murders called honor killings practiced by Islam are rarely mentioned by multiculturalists. When Islamic girls or women participate in pre-marital sex, get divorced, or are raped, family members often kill them in order “to protect their family’s honor.” In 2002 the Independent Human Rights Commission reported that 460 women in Pakistan were victims of honor killings. Their killers were their own brothers and husbands and fathers and uncles and even mothers. How can multiculturalists give moral justification to such a barbaric and unthinkable practice? Islamic Jihadists will strap a bomb on a child’s waist, send him into a crowed market and blow up as many people as possible. How can the promoters of multiculturalism justify or even rationalize such a barbaric and unthinkable practice? Only God can authoritatively establish the standard of right and wrong for men! The only true morality is God’s morality! God has the right to set the standard for right and wrong because He is the Creator of man and of all things and He is the only true God. If the God of the Bible is the only true God then keeping His law is the only true morality. The Ten Commandments are God’s standard of right and wrong. They show what God expects and demands of men as far as morality is concerned. God’s code of ethics is true for all cultures at all times and is the ultimate moral authority. The Ten Commandments is the only system of morality that is valid in God’s eyes. The laws of God has clearly spoken concerning dishonesty, theft, murder and adultery and leaves no room for tolerance of these things no matter who is guilty of them. The nations and individuals in them must answer to God for their moral conduct in relation to the absolute standard of God’s Ten Commandments. At one time America was unified on the principle that our country was founded on a moral structure based on the Holy Bible. We were a nation that based our judicial laws on the laws of God. Christian virtues were seen and upheld as preferable. But in recent years multiculturalism has chipped away at the idea of an absolute divinely inspired moral code. Multiculturalism’s undermining of our Christian sexual mores is fast bringing our country to its knees. Multiculturalism has now succeeded in making our country so politically correct and minority sensitive that we have all but forgotten our Christian roots.

It is decidedly intolerant of biblical Christianity, even hostile to it. Because Christians proclaim an exclusive book, God and Savior they are more and more being accused of “spiritual intolerance.” But in fact multiculturalism which speaks so much of the need for tolerance is the most intolerant philosophy of all! No religion except biblical Christianity is treated by them as inherently offensive. Multiculturalists want to create the impression that Christianity is offensive in order to reduce its influence in public life. Virtually everything about multiculturalism is against God, against God’s laws, against God’s word and against God’s Son. Our universities highly value multiculturalism but at the same time they censor and silence the Christian world view and Christians who oppose multiculturalism are called racist, bigoted and homophobic. The National Geographic and many scientists and educators today will no longer use the time designation of B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (the year of our Lord). Instead they have adopted B.C.E. for Before Current Era and C.E. or Current Era. There is a whole list of dangers to our country and our churches created by

multiculturalism. 1. Because of the widespread acceptance of multiculturalism our Christian culture is largely unable to defend itself. One of the purposes of multiculturalism is to mentally and spiritually disarm Christians so that they cannot and will not stand up for and proclaim biblical truth. 2. Multiculturalism creates a spiritual and moral vacuum into which any false god or doctrine or system may easily be introduced. 3. It is a Trojan horse that is bringing the homosexual agenda into our schools. The reason multiculturalists hate Christianity is because our moral values get in the way of their wicked lifestyles. Since under their influence the biblical standard of morality is prohibited, sin goes unchecked. 4. Multicultural thinking keeps our country from understanding that Islamic Jihad is evil and must be stopped because multiculturalism leaves people blind to evil. Multiculturalism causes Americans to oppose shutting down mosques in our midst where violence is preached. Multiculturalism is a lie! God’s word says there is one God, one way of salvation and one way of living that is acceptable to God.

We are now in a battle between moral relativism and biblical Christian values and morality. All our great American military and economic power will be for nothing if we lose our moral bearings.

2. We must preach and stand for the truth in a world that is often offended by it! We must begin to speak out against multiculturalism wherever we encounter it and speak up for Christ and the gospel. We need to get some Christian backbone that will enable us to boldly and unashamedly stand for the gospel of Jesus Christ as the one great need of mankind. In doing this we must avoid all compromise with this dangerous, Satanic worldview.

Our very concept of missions and missionaries is at stake. Since multiculturalism teaches that all religions are of equal validity, the Christian work of preaching the one way of salvation through repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ is considered offensive and unacceptable. God’s word reveals that sinful men need the Savior regardless of their culture or religion. Chinese people need to hear the gospel, Mexicans, Brazilians, Arabs, Jews and Philippinos. Christians have been commanded by Christ Himself to preach the gospel to every creature throughout the whole earth

but multiculturalists want to shut our mouths about that gospel! Multiculturalism has transformed most Protestants today from talking about missions and missionaries and evangelism to “holding interfaith dialogue.” Biblical Christians must stay committed to the evangelization of all nations!