I once loved attending apologetics seminars and cheered wildly when Christian apologists won debates with skeptics, proving that objective truth and the proclaimed good guys still triumphed. I felt affirmed to be on the right side of moral clarity, where we condemned those weak moral relativists for having wishy-washy theology.
Does that sound incredibly smug? Sure does.
But I didn’t realize it back then. Over time, though, the answers didn’t seem as clear anymore. As it turns out, there are good people on both sides, and relativism may not be the real problem. I also see now that words and phrases like “good guys,” “won,” “right side,” “clarity” and “truth” all should come with sidebars and disclaimers.
Michelle Rayburn
Many Christians assume their moral code is the benchmark. As I’ve examined my beliefs and wrestled with inconsistencies, I now realize morality is more nuanced than I once perceived it to be.
I didn’t even notice how I’d assumed my views to be the default standard — the Christian bubble doesn’t break easily. Nor did I notice before how many evangelical apologists accuse secular critics of circular reasoning while being oblivious to how their own arguments spin in similar loops.
By definition, objectivism is “an ethical theory considering the moral good to be objective and independent of personal or merely human feelings.” In Christian practice, apologists would contend this means following God’s way, not our way. In contrast, relativism asserts “theories of what is right and good are relative in that ethical truths depend upon the individuals and groups holding them.”
“Many Christians assume their moral code is the benchmark.”
Apologists condemn personal experience as watering down truth to fit our desires.
But when I look at morality, I wonder: What counts as a moral absolute? And what is a cultural custom that’s been relabeled as God’s will? Does the church down the street lead its people astray, or does it simply reflect a different expression of faith?
These are uncomfortable questions, especially for someone who once placed her certainty in the belief that there is one fixed moral truth — for all people, at all times, in all places.
If moral objectivism were truly universal, wouldn’t the standards hold across history and cultures? But they don’t.
That challenge is ancient. Scripture itself complicates the narrative when we compare book against book, testament against testament. There are no easy explanations for anything.
For example, in the Old Testament, God commanded Israel to destroy entire nations, sparing no person or animal. So, what’s called “murder” in one chapter is “obedience” in another. Try packaging that neatly into a Sunday sermon.
Apologists might defend the incongruent parts by distinguishing “murder” from “killing.” Or they might claim a divine command makes an act good. But this is where the logic becomes circular: God’s commands are good because they come from God, and we know they come from God because they are good.
“Morality is not objective when it becomes conditional on who claims to speak for God.”
So then, morality is not objective when it becomes conditional on who claims to speak for God.
The actual rot begins in moral superiority. Look closely, and you see Christians regularly justifying actions that contradict their stated moral code — so long as they believe those actions fulfill God’s purposes. You don’t have to look far for proof; our current political scene provides plenty of evidence.
It’s a familiar, exhausting loop: God is my ultimate authority; therefore, sometimes God uses flawed people; therefore, this leader is chosen by God; therefore, their flaws don’t matter; therefore, their actions must be justified.
Once that logic applies, morality can be twisted into a shield to defend all sorts of bad behavior. If we’re certain of our own infallibility — believing God ordained it — then tolerance, compassion and humility are all the more easy to discard when someone doesn’t conform and we’ve been taught to believe their actions are an attack on our faith.
I know this trap intimately. I spent years in a cycle, constantly striving to please God through goodness.
I measured the strength of my faith by how well I followed the rules. It was what many call a “goodness gospel.” The unspoken contract goes something like this: Be good enough to earn God’s approval, speak out against those who get it wrong and defend Christian values — whatever that means — at all costs.
But those rules kept multiplying. The shame multiplied too. There were “biblical” rules for everything: food and exercise, who to hang out with and where to go, and endless warnings about worldly influence. In that headspace, you always can find a reason to chastise yourself or someone else for getting it wrong. And I believed if I didn’t get everything right, God was deeply disappointed in me.
“We constantly mistake our own preferences for God’s absolutes.”
We see this pattern all over the place, from wellness to parenting, from church doctrine to politics. We constantly mistake our own preferences for God’s absolutes. Christians love to point out moral decay as something happening “out there” among the faithless.
But the real evidence of decay lies much closer to home than most faithful Christians care to admit. Despite a professed commitment to defend life, some believers excuse cruelty, or even rebrand it as conviction.
“True love doesn’t let someone stay in their sin, you know,” they say. Endorsing cruelty makes room for dishonesty and slander to get a free pass because they serve the so-called right cause. Meanwhile, compassion is dismissed as weakness.
The more insidious decay occurs from within. Christians love to warn about a slippery slope from order to chaos — a downward path toward a pit of apostasy. But maybe the actual dangerous slide begins when we fall in love with our own certainty and call it truth. It’s much harder to spot that slope. For me, pride prevented me from recognizing how spiritual elitism had captured my heart.
As soon as we declare ourselves to be the guardians of all truth, we stop listening to other voices, and curiosity evaporates. Pride replaces empathy. Theology becomes a weapon.
Before we point fingers and accuse the outside world of moral decline, perhaps we might want to consider what’s going on right beneath our feet. The moral decay affecting the church doesn’t necessarily come from outside. It could come from stubborn refusal to question anything or from justifying ugliness in the name of faith.
Real moral integrity has to begin with brutal honesty about our own condition. Sure, it’s terrifying to ask questions if you’ve been programmed to believe questions have no place in faith.
Perhaps true faith isn’t defending our certainty — although that feels like the safe option. In the comfortable belief that we, and no one else, know precisely what God thinks, there is no immunity from moral decay. Genuine faith invites the courage to stop and pose the most terrifying question of all: “What if I’m wrong?”
Michelle Rayburn is a freelance writer whose work centers on faith, spiritual transformation and exploring a more authentic Christianity. She writes at “Disillusioned Faith” on Substack and holds a master of arts degree in ministry leadership.