I recently listened to a decades-old Jack Gariss radio lecture about Arnold Toynbee’s views on history and religion, with the host relating he’d come to disavow certain previously held beliefs in the aftermath of the Apollo moon landing. Gariss felt after Einstein and Armstrong, our place in the center of the universe had vanished. Everything was relative now. “I did not realize how much I’d changed, perhaps we’d all changed, in our perspective,” the spiritual guru said in response to re-reading An Historian’s Approach to Religion. As we aim for Mars and intelligent machines and more, we’re traveling even further from what were once considered indelible truths.

As the world turns, religions are supposed to stay steadfast, to provide a mooring to hold on to as progress runs ahead in other ways. Of course, that’s never been entirely true, as beliefs have continually evolved over centuries, if at a glacial pace. But something different is happening now with the Christian faith, as it’s begun to feel the stress of the rapid transformation of the Digital Age and the increasingly connected Global Village. Can Christianity pivot from its often-harsh Biblical teachings to reinvent itself for our decentralized era? If it somehow did, would that actually be beneficial or harmful to future progress?

In a Salon article, Zoltan Istvan considers the limits of Christian relativism:

In April, the pope made history when he told his flock to accept divorced Catholics. Last week, NPR reported a gay preacher had been ordained as a Baptist minister. Next year it might well be evangelicals in the deep South turning pro-choice. Everywhere around us, traditional Christian theology and its culture is breaking down in hopes of remaining relevant. The reality is with incredible scientific breakthroughs in the 21^st century, ubiquitous information via the Internet, and an increasingly nonreligious youth, formal religion has to adapt to survive.  

But can it do so without becoming obsolete? Perhaps more importantly, can Christianity — the world’s largest religion with 2 billion believers — remain the overarching societal power it’s been for millennia? The answer is not an easy one for the old faith-driven guard.

To remain a dominant force throughout the 21^st century, formal religion will have to bend. It will have to adapt. It will have to evolve. Hell, it will have to be upgraded. Welcome to the growing impact of Christian relativism.•