Keeping it Real...

Last night I flipped through the channels, and a movie caught my eye.  The scene showed two characters, a policeman and a boy, embroiled in verbal confrontation.  As the little boy berated the police officer, he used the infamous “F-word”.   I quickly turned the channel, expressing my dismay that a line using that language would be given to a child.  To my surprise, my comment sparked quite a lively conversation.

Apparently, this type of language is to be perceived simply as an expression of a reality.  As a viewer, I am not to be offended by those who are simply attempting to present authentic characters who tell an authentic story.  Reality, it is called.  I prefer to call it Relativism. 

Encarta World English Dictionary defines Relativism as follows:   

“the belief that concepts such as right and wrong, goodness and badness, or truth and falsehood are not absolute but change from culture to culture and situation to situation”

You see, the little boy in the movie is black.  He lives in a poor inner city neighborhood.  Therefore, this type of language is to be expected.  Using the F-word is as much a part of his culture as his disdain for the white police officer.  Hollywood is just “keeping it real”.  Oh, if only Hollywood were that noble.

I don’t need the college degree I don’t have to see that our culture has, in our day, been more greatly influenced by Hollywood, the music industry, and cable tv than by the church.  The unacceptable has been introduced, embraced and now promulgated in a land where tolerance and relativism override absolutes, especially those espoused by a supposedly culturally irrelevant Bible. 

My question:  “How can the revelation of the Creator of all mankind, the One who instituted culture, the Giver of language itself, be irrelevant?”  Thankfully, it’s not.  The problem is that our culture is all too quickly discarding the absolute, one ultimate reality that does not depend on anything and is not relative to anything else.