“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at tha
t moment attacking, I am not professing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”
- Martin Luther
I am reading “The Truth War” by John MacArthur. Very appropriate for our world today. We now live in a postmodern society. It might not be easy for all to realize it, but for Christian university students, it is quite clear that people are swimming in a postmodern jell-o pool. “Modernity … was characterized by the belief that truth exists and that the scientific method is the only reliable way to determine that truth.” (MacArthur) “Postmodernism suggests that if objective truth exists, it cannot be known objectively or with any degree of certainty. That is because (according to postmodernists), the subjectivity of the human mind makes knowledge of objective truth impossible.” (MacArthur)
It’s just amazing how people around me think like that and a lot of them are actually a mixture of the two philosophies. People buy it because they buy a little peace of mind for a little while. The modernist would say that God cannot be proved scientifically while the postmodernist would say that even if God exists, He’s got no hold or say over my life because really, we can’t know for certain what He says in the Bible and what you think is just as good as what I think. So people like it that way.
It’s tough for me to chat with those people and try to make them realize that God exists and what He thinks and says about anything is ultimate truths that cannot be altered or changed or adapted to one’s interests. Christian people are easily dismissed by postmodernists because postmodernists will simply reply that what you think is good for you. But they deeply dislike that you are convinced about something. Anyways, it’s hard to witness to them without being harsh to a certain point.
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yeah I know what you mean. there’s that thing called : the emerging church (or emerging movement) it’s kind of church people tired of being under authority and not getting what they want (fleshly in the church)
They get together say that nothing is absolute and accept anybody. Like I know the church needs to reach out and adjust itself to the world, but there’s a limit and they have crossed it. I want the Church to be aware, especially those who’ve been hurt, they could easily be traped in that ”emerging” church with no concept of any authority nor absolute truth.
Rob and Kristen Bell, founders of “Mars Hill - a very large and steadily growing Emerging community in Grand Rapids, Michigan” wrote that they
“found themselves increasingly uncomfortable with church. ‘Life in the church had become so small,’ Kristen says. ‘It had worked for me for a long time. Then it stopped working.’ The Bells started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself - ‘discovering the Bible as a human product,’ as Rob puts it, rather than the product of divine fiat. ‘The Bible is still in the center for us,’ Rob says, ‘but it’s a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it.’ I grew up thinking that we’ve figured out the Bible,’ Kristen says, ‘that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again - like life used to be black and white, and now it’s color.” (Quoted from MacArthur, The Truth War)
Then MacArthur writes,
“The idea that the Christian message should be kept pliable and ambiguous seems especially attractive to young people who are in tune with the culture and in love with the spirit of the age and can’t stand to have authoritative biblical truth applied with precision as a corrective to worldly lifestyles, unholy minds, and ungodly behavior. And the poison of this perspective is being increasingly injected into the evangelical church body.” (MacArthur)
We should never try to adapt theology to society so that society embrace it. There are better ways than others to reach out our society, and especially in a postmodern one, but the message of salvation and the authority of the Scriptures cannot be adapted.
‘This then, is the judgment: light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God’ - John 3:19-21
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