My Identity is OK, Your Identity is OK, Be Whatever You Say, and Accept the Cultural Decay

What happens after a culture adopts as its worldview that there is no right or wrong? What is the end result of either secular moral relativism or "subjectivism"?

In the video below, the interviewer asks college students how they would feel if he claimed to be a woman, or a Chinese woman, or a six foot five Chinese woman, etc. Their reactions to the gender claims go something like this, "I'm okay with that, I mean, if that's what you want to be, as long as nobody is being hurt."

H/T The Heidelblog

This is how Relativism and Subjectivism eventually lead to absurdity.

How did we get here? As one Episcopal priest told me, "This is the result of being taught there is no objective reality, only 'many truths.'"

Looking for the roots of this belief system (acknowledging that we have failed to rear our children so that they might carry to college a Christian worldview), I had a flashback to 1960's pop-psychology and the best seller, "I'm OK--You're OK" by Thomas Harris MD which seems to have become the mantra of today's youth.

Here is the basis of "I'm OK -- You're OK" according to ChangingMinds.org

"Eric Berne initiated the principle within Transactional Analysis that we are all born 'OK' -- in other words good and worthy. Frank Ernst developed these into the OK matrix, (also known as the 'OK Corral' after the famous 1881 Tombstone shootout between the Earps and the Clantons). These are also known as 'life positions'."

Stop for a minute and recognize the Pelagian heresy in the "we are all born OK" hypothesis.

Let's get back to ChangingMinds.org and examine the matrix of possibilities in this OK worldview,

1) I'm not OK - You're OK
When I think I'm not OK but you are OK, then I am putting myself in an inferior position with respect to you...

2) I'm OK - You're not OK
People in this position feel themselves superior in some way to others, who are seen as inferior and not OK. As a result, they may be contemptuous and quick to anger. Their talk about others will be smug and supercilious, contrasting their own relative perfection with the limitation of others...

3) I'm OK - You're OK
When I consider myself OK and also frame others as OK, then there is no position for me or you to be inferior or superior.
This is, in many ways, the ideal position. Here, the person is comfortable with other people and with themself. They are confident, happy and get on with other people even when there are points of disagreement...

4) I'm not OK - You're not OK
This is a relatively rare position, but perhaps occurs where people unsuccessfully try to project their bad objects onto others. As a result, they remain feeling bad whilst also perceive others as bad...

It would seem that today's college students fit into "the ideal" category 3, and lowly, "relatively rare" Christians fit into category 4. The reason that I say that Christians fit the "I'm not OK - You're not OK" description is that Christians recognize that we are all fallen and we are all in need of a Savior, and I'm OK with that, but I am not OK with a worldview that follows position 3 to its ultimate end. That end is what our college kids will face in the future of their own making. Relativism and Subjectivism such as seen in the video above paint a picture of a culture that today cannot even decide where to go to the restroom, and  predict a society which in the future will decay into confusion because of its refusal to make value judgments.

Pray for our youth that they might receive the Spirit of Truth and find the words to say, "I am not OK, neither are you, and we both need Jesus to make things OK."