Reflections on Relativism

From time to time I encounter the person who is skeptical of religious claims to universal truth. One hears the almost stock expression, well that may be true for you....but... Being a pastor in the vicinity of an evangelical seminary I often encounter students who are extremely excited to expose and dismantle what is deemed the fruit of post-modernity..relativism. But I think the relativism ascribed to post-modernity is often too quickly dismissed. Strawmen usually are. The problem for the hedger is not as is often mistakenly proposed a difficulty with the question of whether truth is relative, but rather is the proposition true...."maybe it is just kind of true?" Post-modern "relativism" is more helpfully recognized to be a skepticism that is deeply suspicious that universal claims are veiled assertions of power. When one is working with this kind of baggage of suspicion it makes one hesitant to affirm the validity anything. For to affirm the wrong thing is to become a participant in the assertion of power. Post-modern relativism invites a willingness to probe the web of conflicting and often insidious entanglements that are at root quite ugly. They invite an openness to the sinfulness of those inner thoughts that are so often ignored or denied.