Without a doubt, there is no shortage of people proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ in the world today. From street corners, in huge cities to byways within the tiny communities. The Lord Jesus is being preached nearly the world over, and as a result, there is no other religion more widespread. Except one: relativism. The pervasive, and indignant spread of this selfish mindset has eroded the faith of more believers of Christianity than the threat of violence. However, this experience of individualistic truth reaches deeper into history than the twentieth century. The proclamation of private interpretation and the prevalence of personal religious opinion is the source and summit of relativism in Christianity.

Cognitive Relativism is an absolute claim that there is no absolute truth. Such a logical paradox can be explained as, what is true for one person is not true for another. Which breaks down reality in a subjective form, and makes everyone the dictator or interpreter of their own reality. This type of worldview is grounds for all sorts of logical fallacies and can be countered with many simple arguments. The most simple is: You say that there is absolutely no absolute truth, which makes the claim absolute truth. People who conform themselves to cognitive relativism can declare that logic is a truth for you, but not necessarily for me. Therefore one is left scratching their heads on how to deal with this mindset as it becomes more and more prevalent in Western Society.

Within the United States, exist numerous versions and types of Christianity. Even in small towns, a person has at least two to as many as a dozen choices of denominations to choose from. In addition to this, a common occurrence is that when one person does not agree with the direction a church or a pastor is taking the result is another split and form their own church. This fracturing behavior is as numerous as opinions as anyone might have about any particular subject. Denominational Christianity based on the Protestant model numbers in the thirty thousands of styles and types to choose from. Many members of a denomination might be vocally hostile about a neighbor church down the street when the reality is they disagree not on matters of truth, but the opinion of what truth is.

Protestantism in the United States is suffering from cognitive relativism that is pervasive in its contamination of the Truth. The advertised need to privately interpret scripture has somehow expanded to public interpretation. When one reads a translated text, devoid of contextual and historical understanding, one can create nearly any belief at any given time. No other text since its mass production has experienced this level of denominationalism. None of these who desire to live by their opinions are doing anything wrong by their own admission, as they find themselves in is a two-part relationship: Jesus Christ and Them.

This becomes a separation of Church and Self. For no singular member of the Body of Christ is itself a standalone entity. There is an inclusion that all members be one, and this cannot be attained so long as there is the disunity of the Body. Every believer who subscribes to these ideals becomes the Head and then dictates to themselves, and any who would agree what is and what is not the truth. To the detriment of the established religion of Jesus Christ and the simple truth of its beginnings as founded in one Catholic Church and not in its infancy a myriad of beliefs at all. There must have been some condition, some form of singular authority that would craft a singular system of worship, that would sustain itself in Truth.

The establishment of authority by Jesus himself upon the shoulders of the Apostles count as nothing when the opinion of the follower becomes more important. When the earliest example of the church shows that all were in one accord, that they all followed the teaching of the apostles, some other conclusion must be declared. That conclusion required by necessity an apostasy within the church, and indeed there have been apostasies, but not a single thread of the Catholic Church has been cut. Indeed from modern times stretching back to Peter is most direct and historical proof of the continuance of the apostolic headship established by Christ. That is unless someone decides that it is not Peter that the church is built upon, but the profession of faith in Jesus.

The private interpretation exclamation had an added effect: it made the believer the final authority. In essence, the most obvious conclusion is that every member of denominationalism is a Pope. When two of these Popes meet they will disagree on any number of topics and will contest the conclusion: I will believe what I believe and you believe what you believe. This behavior will carve out of the Scriptures an individual truth. Their truth then becomes the only Truth that they will believe in. It will influence their ideals, morals, and prejudices. Occasionally they might find someone that agrees with their opinions, or at least a fraction of them, and can perhaps form small units. There could never be a shared lexicon or centralized teaching in this, as it can change over time to suit the needs of the practitioner. This is cognitive relativism.

Protestant Churches stop appearing like beacons of truth and become ivory towers of subjective opinion. Where anyone can go to any singular established building and be fed off of whatever opinions they might have. Never stopping to ask themselves if it really is a ‘me and Jesus’ lifestyle, or is it more than that? Perhaps when the human needs to place themselves above God the need for God ceases, and the prevalence of pride takes a firm hold on the individual it will entirety create the existence of Denominational Cognitive Relativistic Christianity. Only when humility to the Authority of Christ and His Church shakes them to the core will this view cease, and once again all believers become one in Christ, as He is one with the Father.