Extremist

by Terry Wane Benton

What does it even mean? To an atheist (who is extreme in claiming to know there is no God), almost any believer in God who takes the Bible seriously is an “extremist.” To people who believe that morals are all relative, I would indeed be considered an extremist who thinks the Bible holds morals as absolute, permanently binding by God, and will judge us in eternal judgment.

But to me, those who think I am extreme, are extreme to me and others in the other direction. When pushed for consistency, they keep backing away from any moral standard till there is none, which is extreme to most people.

All this word says is that this person believes differently than me. It makes us ask, “Extreme from what position?” The person using the term may be the actual extremist: someone who stands at an extreme point away from an actual truth standard or point of reference. God’s word is truth (John 17:17). Truth is stationary. It is the point of reference, or there is none. From that point of reference, we need to be as close to it as possible. But some are really close to it, and some are extremely far away from it. The one far away thinks the one close to the target is an “extremist” because he uses himself as the point of reference. So, unless the standard of measuring truth is defined, the accusation of “extremist” becomes about as useless as other prejudicial and poorly defined words.

I want to be an extremist in some ways and not in others. I don’t care when an extreme liberal calls a conservative extremist. It says nothing except that the conservative is much different than the liberal, and quite frankly, that is just fine with me. How extremely far from God is a person? That is what really matters.