Lacking Judgment

I got in the car and switched on Dennis Prager just as he was making the generalized observation that those Christians who think Jews are not saved without Jesus are more likely to support policies more favorable to Jews than those liberal Christians who do think Jews are saved without Jesus.  He observed that the religious and political don't predict the other, yet Jews usually think the Christians who think they're not saved are the more unfriendly group to them.  As a generalization, I think Prager is correct.  And I think there's a connection.

Christians who are pluralists or inclusivists are almost uniformly unwilling to make judgments about truth claims.  That's why they aver from judging between the truth claims of religion and their efficacy for salvation.  That same aversion to making judgments translates into morality on a larger scale.  They're also unwilling to judge the relative morality between groups.  So the Palestinians and Jews are on equal ground when no moral judgments are made. 

Truth claims and morality require making judgments for good reasons.  And the mistaken modern notion of religious pluralism and tolerance makes people equally incapable of making the proper kinds of judgments.

Comments

[CT]

Two questions:

1. What's a "truth claim" (as opposed to a simple "claim")?

2. Isn't it a good thing to be generally "unwilling to judge the relative morality" of whole races of people and ethnicities?

[Francis Beckwith]

"1. What's a "truth claim" (as opposed to a simple "claim")"

Do you want the true answer or the false one?

"2. Isn't it a good thing to be generally `unwilling to judge the relative morality' of whole races of people and ethnicities?"

Yes, and that is precisely why strong affirmative action is wrong.

[CT]

So a "truth claim" is simply a "true claim"? Fair enough. Must affirmative action involve judging the relative morality of whole races of people? Please spell that out.

[dave iowa city]

Regardless of where Jews stand in God's plans the comments were inciteful. Pluralism and liberal Christianity are growing problems. Concepts such as truth claims, morality, and tolerance are under constant challenge, yet the underlying paradox is that those making the challenge are making truth claims, moral judgements, and being intolerant.

[CT]

I wonder if we're not attacking a straw man here. As in this post, it seems like frequent move among evangelicals of a certain breed is to suppose that the core issue is some sort of relativism about truth and morality. But maybe this just isn't the issue. Maybe those who disagree don't have a problem with idea of truth. Maybe they instead simply have a genuine disagreement. When they disagree, perhaps they're not attacking the very idea of truth, but they are simply calling into question the particular claims that someone else takes to be true.

In general, why associate pluralists, liberals, and inclusivists with "relativism"?

[Jon]

Most of the people I know that tend to lean favorably to the Palestinian side of the Israeli border dispute do it for what they regard as moral reasons.

Take for instance the recent flare up. As I understand it Israel violated a peace treaty and killed 6 Hamas gunmen on Nov 5 (note the strategic date). Hamas retaliated by firing rockets into Israel, which killed zero. Israel has retaliated to that by killing about 400 Palestinians so far. Those I talk to simply find this to be immoral.