Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Can YOU Condemn THIS?

A fascinating, heartbreaking story from the Chicago Tribune, available here, details the prevalence of child marriages in so-called developing countries such as Ethiopia. Girls as young as seven years of age are promised to much-older men as brides.

Beyond the simple tragic nature of the situation, to those of us in the civilized nations of the West, two things are particularly interesting about this.

One: the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has not only condoned the custom but encouraged it. This is another vivid example of how Christian churches corrupt themselves by attempting to accommodate customs and traditions that are utterly antithetical to Christian principles. This is simply a disgrace, and no excuses are acceptable.

Two: this practice is another thumb in the eye of multiculturalist relativism, the popular but now declining philosophy of the West for the past half-century. The father of a seven-year-old Ethiopian girl about to be married to a much older man is quoted as saying, "I know some people say this is uncivilized. But they don't live here. So how can they judge?"

A more perfect summation of the Western argument for multiculturalism and ethical relativism could hardly be imagined.

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