“Law may prescribe that the male nipples be made equal to the female ones, but they still will not give milk.” – Professor/author Allan Bloom
In 1987, a University of Chicago professor wrote a book criticizing American higher education that jolted the American education establishment. The Closing of the American Mind spent several weeks on The New York Times Bestseller List, while it was met with praise from conservatives and ridicule from progressive liberals. In the book’s first sentence, Bloom wrote,” There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of, almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.” Bloom continued, “The relativity of truth is not a theoretical insight but a moral postulate, the condition of a free society, or so they (the education establishment) see it. They have all been equipped with this framework early on and it is the modern replacement for the inalienable natural rights that used to be the traditional American grounds for a free society.”
It has been 35 years since Bloom warned us about moral relativism’s grip on American education, which he argues began 50 years prior to the publishing of his book. “Openness” is the only virtue generations of Americans have been taught. Relativism has become the only plausible stance in the face of various truth claims and various ways of living. The enemy is anyone who dares to believe that absolute truth exists. “The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past, men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism and chauvinism. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all,” Bloom wrote.
Sound familiar? Think about the destruction of statues, the renaming of schools and the false history of the latest liberal fad like “The 1619 Project.” Karl Marx boasted such when he declared that if you take away a nation’s history, it will be more easily persuaded.
A recent Gallup survey reveals 58 percent of Americans say you get to decide what’s right and wrong for yourself. Most stunning is the rejection of God’s truth and absolute moral standards by American Christians, the most likely to hold traditional standards of morality. Evangelicals, defined as believing the Bible to be the true, reliable word of God, are just as likely to reject absolute moral truth (46 percent) as to accept its existence (48 percent). And only 43 percent of born-again Christians still embrace absolute truth. No longer is God’s Word seen as the moral authority that is foundational to our beliefs and actions.
The sex education that has engulfed our schools is an example of the dangerous road we are traveling. Restrooms and athletic locker rooms are now shared by male and female. Of the so-called Baby Boomer generation, only two percent indicate they are homosexual. Generation Z (those aged 15-25) claim 20 percent are homosexual.
Relativism has encouraged blurring the lines between sexes to the point sex change operations are promoted among the young. In some states the government says biological males can compete as “women” in athletics. This flies in the face of a holy God who made them man and woman. The engineer knows truth exists, because if 2+1 = 4 then the bridge will collapse. Bloom reminds us: “Law may prescribe that the male nipples be made equal to the female ones, but they still will not give milk.”
On March 7, I provided testimony to the Missouri House of Representatives General Laws Committee concerning legislation that would prohibit public school districts, charter schools, and publicly funded institutions of higher education from allowing an individual of the male sex to participate in a sport designated for the female sex, as determined by the student’s official birth certificate, or official government document. The bills (HB 2734 and HB 2197) were sponsored by Reps. Chuck Bayse, R-Rocheport, Bennie Cook, R-Houston and Jamie Burger, R-Benton. A Senate version (SB 781, the “Save Women’s Sports Act”), sponsored by Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, is working its way through committees. The bills by Bayse and Cook adds a penalty, making a violating institution ineligible for state aid. The Iowa legislature passed similar legislation and Gov. Kim Reynolds signed it into law, March 3.
Bloom reminds us, “Every age is blind to its own worst madness.” But we serve a Savior who makes the blind see. May God make America see truth.