Christian philosopher William Lane Craig has noted that a postmodern world is an impossibility. Postmodernism, if you're wondering, is the worldview that suggests that truth is unknowable and thus a worthless search; the best we can do is allow each person to state what is true for him or herself. Craig reasons rightly that the laws of physics, for one, make this an implausible worldview. You simply cannot declare that gravity, for instance, is not true for you. That's an important point of entry when a postmodern thinker suggests to you that absolute knowledge of the truth is not attainable.
What postmoderns really are limited to arguing is that truth is not knowable in the realms of metaphysics, which would include matters of faith. This is the reason why so many people in our time are convinced that no one god is king, no one path to heaven is better than another. What is king to a postmodern is not an answer, then, but a question. If a postmodern thinker can pose a "better question," he not only has gone as far as he can go, he has gone farther than you; he has dismissed your truth as evident to anyone but you.
For this reason, various quarters of the so-called emerging church, which seeks among other things to reach postmodern thinkers on their turf, have been roundly criticized. The implication is that if we allow postmoderns to ask endless questions, and more so if we couch our teachings in "questioning" arenas, we reduce the truth we know to be true--that Christ is the Son of God who died as the only acceptable saving sacrifice for our sins--to just another opinion in the grand pool of ideas.
I don't think so. I think we cannot be afraid of questions. I also think that when we teach from a questioning viewpoint, we are helping people identify with the lesson. "Ah," they can say, "I've asked that question myself."
I also have found that many teachers in the emerging church (not all--we can never declare an "all" for any strand of Christian thinking) are actually quite conservative in their theological stance, as we would identify ourselves to be at TFH. They have absolutes that reflect that stance. They are simply trying to start from an open door rather than a closed one.
In meeting with our Life Together small group leaders today, those who often are engaged in facilitating discussions within our fellowship, I emphasized this theme with them: All questions are equal; all answers are not.
What I am striving for here is that we allow people, especially those young in the maturity of their faith, to ask inquisitive questions. More than that, though, I want people to understand that the Bible first, and Spirit-led wisdom-imbued people second, do carry answers far beyond those that the world gives them. There is not, as I have said before, a "flatline of opinion." We can turn to Scripture in ways that we cannot turn to Tony Robbins or Oprah Winfrey, Aristotle or Benjamin Franklin.
QUESTIONS FOR THOSE WHO MIGHT COMMENT
- What good do you see in starting with questions?
- Where have you seen examples of the flatline of opinion, where all ideas are given equal footing?
- What gives you greater confidence in God and His Word than in other ideas?
- How do we balance "having the answer" with "having all the answers," especially as we interact with those who are honestly seeking God?
God Keeps Leading
11 years ago
5 comments:
I've noticed a lot of women watch a morning show called "The View." You might know of it---several outspoken opinionted celebrities discussing "hot topics." It is only TV yes, but the fact that I hear women saying,"I love that show, I always watch it when I'm at home," means that it is making an impact on American women! On that show all ideas are given equal value as long as they are not Christian or declare in any way that their way is the only way, I've noticed. About a week ago the topic was the religious views of the candidates being expressed and made known to the voters. One(who will be nameless) stated,"We don't need to know you need a saviour. Saved from what?" The audience applauded wildly then they cut to commercial. I saw just that snippet as I passed the TV at work, but that really has got me thinking about what do people even know about Christianity. Is it just ignorance? Is this just being closed? I am disheartened by many, many people who are not seeking God, not asking questions(which would be wonderful and welcomed by me). I ask what can we do to make people ask questions more? We all know every person needs Christ at the center.
I think when questions challenge our faith they can be quite intimidating and unsettling. If Jesus is the "truth" and we can "know Him" then postmodernism seems to be more a lie to confuse, under the guise of some intellectual wording with big words and complicated meanings. I think truth is actually quite simple and readily available, but people tend to complicate the issue, especially when they have a hard time accepting truth they dont like for one reason or another.
I think thats why there is a big divide between gathering knowledge and gathering truth. I wonder if gathering knowledge can actually become an idol?
If you are going to encourage new believers to ask questions you have to build a safe comfortable environment in which to do so. I only say this because in this blog I would not be surprised if people have not participated because it is intellectually intimidating to say the least. These new believers are just finding out about their own hearts and desperately trying to find Jesus...and may not know much else...but the more I think about that, maybe they are the smart ones...just thinking out loud.
Bravo, Jeff. We should never be afraid of quesitons or try to quash them. Questions for believers can make us more articulate about what we do believe. Besides, Jesus answered questions with questions. Why? Because it drew people in and caused them to look closer. There are a lot of Christians who don't even know why they believe what they believe. And, because we have been afraid of questions we have caused searchers to think we are ignorant. On another level, sometimes as the world grows in its ability to gather knowledge we find that we have come up with answers that don't have all the facts. A very simple example is in the past thinking that the sun revolved around the earth. Truth did not change. As we had more technology and were able to gather more knowledge "truth" changed. And, doesn't our ongoing experience of God reveal more and more of what God is like? And, again, I think God loves our questions because it shows we are hungry to know him more and gives him an opportunity to provide answers. What if after the first year you met Laura you never asked her any questions, you never wanted to figure out how she works? What a boring and probably dead and gone relationship. I think what some of us fear is we won't be able to answer the questions asked of us. What would we do? How bout saying, "You know, I don't know. Let's talk about it." I am full of more questions than ever. It's because I want to know more. Does any of this make sense?????
I'm with you catd!
When we evaluate postmodernism, what are we comparing it to? Modernism?
While I agree that there are some shortcomings in postmodern philosophy, it is foolish to assume that modernism doesn't have an equal share of problems. In fact, modernism itself is what postmodernism seeks to correct.
In the North American church, modernism has thoroughly flavored our approach to the gospel, so that we are not just Christians but North American Modern Christians. "Our" version of the good news features the "personal relationship" with Jesus (God) as the most important aspect of our faith experience.
I do not call into question the essentially personal element of the gospel. At the same time, we must recognize that a merely one-on-one approach to the Christian life reflects a thoroughly modern philosophy that elevates individual experience over relationship with others.
The postmodern mind seeks social connectedness as a much higher value than individualism and moral absolutism. Winning arguments is not the goal of conversation, understanding and valuing others is (even when others radically disagree). This is a valid critique of the church as we know it.
If we think that the modern church is more faithful to the gospel than the postmodern church could ever be, we fail to recognize how modernism itself has shifted the message of the Bible in its own destructive ways, and has played a large part in the emergence of moral relativism (via individualism).
Don't get me wrong, I don't claim to be a postmodern thinker. I'd say I'm more of a late-modern. Interestingly, Paul could probably be called a late-ancient in a post-ancient (modern) world. In fact, he was extremely skillful in using emerging modern thought, especially the rhetoric and literature of the day (pop culture), to communicate thoroughly biblical truths to both Jew (ancient) and Greek (modern) minds. The quality and import of his message did not suffer merely because he communicated across cultures. In fact, the gospel probably couldn't have been preached any other way.
In my opinion, our time is best spent learning how to communicate with individuals in postmodern culture than figuring out all the ways postmodernism is wrong (which seems to be the approach some teachers are taking).
Jeff is getting it right when he instructs us to honor questions. We must be willing to fess-up to not having all the answers.
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