It is 2012 and we have a little fire burning in our bellies that can only be quenched by 16 weeks of training ending with one very long run and a feeling of accomplishment that I have no comparison for.

Step one – finding a race.  We had narrowed our choices down to two races and made our final decision last night, casting our vote with a registration for the Pittsburgh Marathon.  There are 117 days until the race!

Step two – a training plan.  I pulled out our previous plan designed by our good friend Greg Despres and I ran the first week last week.  I plan to do some research to find the “prefect” training plan for this race.

Step three – stay motivated.  In my mind I started training right after Christmas when I hit the pavement three times in one week (something I had not done in awhile).  So last week, while following Greg’s plan was a bit of a second week for me.  I found myself in one weak moment remembering how very long the long runs take at the end and how much time overall I had to commit.  For a split moment I was tempted to decide “I have done this once, do I need to do it again right now?”  But the answer is YES!  I reminded myself in reality all I need to do is concentrate on the running for this week and not let my mind go beyond that.  Run what I have to run this week.  Get it done, enjoy it, learn from it and let it train you!

Rick Kimbal (the Marathon Nut), a guy I just started following on twitter posted a list of to dos for running a marathon.  His step three is set your goals.  I had a general purpose for running, a gut feeling, a drive.  But I realized I needed to write it out and have a clear defined reason.  Doing so would give me more purpose and drive, it would give more meaning to the one foot in front of the other.  I will be sharing my purpose for running a marathon in a future post.

Step four – Get a new pair of running shoes.  I will be headed to a specialty store to replace my old sneakers, the ones I wore in my last marathon. I hope to share a little on that process as well.

It feels good to have this started!

Join me!

Finish the race!

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” -John 10.27-29

or, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” -Romans 8.16

Not only have I led people in this, I have trained hundreds of teens and adults to share their faith in this way.

Then I read a very well done study and well written synopsis of the culture of Christianity in American teenagers by Christian Smith and Melina Lundquist Denton, titled . Through their study they write a strikingly precise summation of what I have observed in the general culture of teens and what I think can be applied to age groups much older and still be on target with reality:

“in the ecology of American adolescents’ lives, religion clearly operates in a social-structurally weak position, competing for time, energy, and attention and often losing against other, more dominant demands and commitments, particularly school, sports, television, and other electronic media.” (p161)
“…we suggest that the defacto dominant religion among contemporary U.S. teenagers is what we might well call ‘Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.’ The creed of this religion…sounds something like this:

1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about onesself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
   (p162-163)

How is the good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God ending up with a result like this!? I know there are various contributors, some of which I have already talked about in the faith-science dichotomy and truth approach. But a large contributor is our focus on a one-time decision prayer, life insurance policy type salvation experience. If you are a Christian today and someone asks you how you know or why you are a Christian, please don’t say “because when I was 5 (or 25) I prayed a prayer…” or if you do say something like that it is only the first half of the first sentence which then goes on to talk about how the living Spirit of God is at work in your life yesterday and TODAY. (Oh, and doubts are fine! I think that is one of the greatest things about faith, doubts can be and should be aired out and wrestled with)

I don’t find a story in the Bible where a person is given assurance of their salvation based on a prayer they prayed in the past. I find reminders of individuals belief of the belief of a community of people, but no assurance. In fact when these reminders of belief are given it is often followed up with the telling of how they are still being “faithful” or “fruitful” in their belief. Additionally, Paul urges us to live, “as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” (Colossians 2.6) It seems that the greater biblical support refers to a continual faith-living, believing, or fruitful life as assurance of our salvation.

So I don’t think it is wrong to encourage that one-time prayer of salvation, and the followup “family of God” / “Now you’re ‘in’” encouragement, I just think it is incomplete. But I want to be careful, because I don’t think the “completeness” of it is to then say, “now you need to obey the law…” which will tend to be a legalistic earn your salvation approach. I do think we need to follow that up with something like, “now, daily, allow this faith to be worked into every area of your being, to the very core of yourself. You will find new ways that your faith applies to your life and community. You will be continually transformed and you must allow the Spirit of God in you to change you and display God’s character through you.”

Finally, I leave you with an approach that we take with our children (which I learned in part through some great conversations with a great reformed theology friend and is really pretty basic to scripture teaching) As our children are growing up we have treated, talked with, taught them that they are part of a believing community, the Church. As they are growing up they can choose to believe (accept) or reject that. I recognize that a child doesn’t express much independent faith when they are young and therefore are heavily influenced by our belief (this is actually the beauty of family as God designed). As each one has expressed faith in Jesus Christ for salvation we celebrated! They were born again! (The kind of beginning that John commented about yesterday) But we then watch and continually look for opportunities to encourage them to affirm their faith and express belief in new ways. Two of ours have expressed enough independent faith for us to encourage them to be baptized. As the grow and in these reaffirmations they will mature in their faith and our prayer is they will grow beyond Mom and Dad’s faith holding them up to understand the even greater cloud of those who have gone before, test their doubts, strengthen their faith and bring others along with them. We certainly share with them about a future of eternity in God’s full presence, but we more often talk about what it means for them to have faith today and how that can change their character (at Tommy commented earlier this evening) and make a difference in the community in which God has put them.

Well, a much longer conclusion that I intended, and a little different ending point than I set out toward 10 days ago. I still would like to come back to the faith-science discussion as I have many more thoughts related to that; but it will wait for another day (probably not tomorrow )

We saw yesterday that the word “believe” is the central instruction on being “saved” from our condition of separation from our eternal creator. So, what is it to “believe”? It seems that in our times it is mostly understood as “think the right thoughts” or “know the right information” or “agree with a set of expressed truths”. But this is not what it is primarily about. “Believe” in the Bible comes from the verb form of the word for “faith”, but our English language doesn’t have a verb form of faith. To believe something is faithing. Active faith is belief. Certainly one must know something about the specific truth to believe it, but it is not merely knowing something, it is acting on our knowing. These actions can be big or small, but it is active.

The most concise chapter in the Bible about faith is Hebrews 11. Read how it begins: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  For by it the people…” and the whole chapter goes on to list action after action of people believing.

It is the orientation of one’s life and actions around the person of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and forgiveness of our sins. By the way, I think this is why baptism is mentioned so many times (though not always) with “believe”, it is active faith, a public proclamation. In an excellent, and exhaustive work on faith, Paul Tillich expresses this even more emphatically:

“Faith as ultimate concern is an act of the total personality. It happens in the center of the personal life and includes all its elements. Faith is the most centered act of the human mind. It is not a movement of a special section or a special function of man’s total being. They all are united in the act of faith. But faith is not the sum total of their impacts. It transcends every special impact as well as the totality of them and it has itself a decisive impact on each of them.” (Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, 1957 ; p4-5)

Secondly, the Bible doesn’t instruct us to just say a prayer to receive Jesus and we are done. I have been wondering if people walk away from Christianity because they did the prayer thing and it has no further impact on their life. Like a life insurance policy, just make sure the premium gets taken out of the “bank” once a week by going to church (or at least twice a month). To be fair, I admit that this isn’t the teaching of most churches, but it has become too familiar in the action (belief) of peoples’ lives in American Christianity.

Furthermore, I am even more concerned about this in Christian believers’ households because the angst of many parents until their child “prays to receive Christ”, after which they stop the continual teaching, mentoring, and encouraging their child because “now they are ‘IN’ for eternity”. I celebrate BIG TIME when a child expresses faith in Christ, in fact one of my nieces took that step on Christmas Eve! But let’s treat re-birth (born-again concept from John 3.16) in the same way we treat birth. Could you image, parents give birth to their baby and then just let life happen, because now their born? Life wouldn’t “happen” very long and these parents would be in jail shortly after the baby’s life ends. After birth, we nurture new life, we continue this in such a way until they are able to live independently. This is a strong burden of mine after 18 years of working with teenagers, many of whom give a testimony of praying to receive Christ at a young age and yet are no different than their peers who have never had such an experience. Believers, we must disciple our children in a continual conversion process and a series of commitments at various life stages and crises.

It is reported that one of the greatest influencers of converts in recent history, Billy Graham, said, “Being a Christian is more than just an instantaneous conversion – it is a daily process whereby you grow to be more and more like Christ” (multiple internet sites attribute this saying to Graham, but I was unable to find any source citation) It is important to emphasize both an instantaneous conversion (although many times imperceptible) as well as an ongoing transformation.

Tomorrow I will bring this series to a close with an additional part of this point and a then bring it back around to where I started 9 days ago.

I don’t find it either…

You would think that something so vital to the gospel that the church preaches would be there, apparent for all to see. What are we “advertising” to a world of people? What are all the revival rallies and evangelism efforts seeking to get people to “buy”? If the problem is that humanity is separated from God by our sin and will therefore be separated from God for eternity, what must we do to be saved?

Before my fellow Christians start throwing things, let’s go to 3 passages that get us the closest I have seen to “praying a prayer to ask Jesus in our hearts” and then consider a proposal as I briefly share some of my experience.

Acts 2.37-39 “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” ³⁸ And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.””

This comes after a powerful sermon preached by Peter. People are convicted, they want to respond and Peter tells them to repent & be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins, and the Holy Spirit will be given to them.

Acts 16.29-34
“And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. ³⁰ Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ³¹ And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” ³² And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. ³³ And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. ³⁴ Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.”

This time we see a jailer who is about to loose his career when he thinks all the prisoners have escaped, so he is ready to kill himself on his sword. Paul and Silas assure him that all the prisoners are there and he is so relieved that his life is spared he asks how to respond. He is told to “faith in the Lord Jesus”. I love it that later that night they are all sitting around the dinner table rejoicing that the jailer believed in God…why, because he was ALIVE, he didn’t kill himself and his family was joyful.

Romans 10.9-11,
“because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. ¹¹ For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” …¹³ For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” “

Here we have a command to say with our mouth, and faith in our heart that the resurrection of Jesus happened. Then it ends with a statement assuring that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Now, as I said, these are the 3 that, in my opinion, get us the closest to what we hear so often of “pray to receive Christ” or “pray to ask Jesus into your heart”. My point is not so much about whether we should encourage/lead someone in a prayer to receive Jesus, but I do have concern about what that person has been told or thinks he/she is doing?

Ok…I’m going to push the “pause” button here for today. My recent posts have been lengthy and some weighty, but more importantly, before I further develop what I am thinking, I would love to hear from the readers on what I have said thus far. Tomorrow, I will publish my developing thoughts and experience.

Two parting questions -
Where else does the Bible instruct us on praying a prayer to be saved?
How is the presentation of the message of the church heard concerning how someone must be saved?

I think advertising has been around since the beginning of creation…the creation account describes the first “ad campaign”. You might naturally begin at Genesis 3 to say that Satan put on the first ad campaign, but I would go before that.

But first let’s consider the 6 phases of the Hierarchy of Effects model of advertising (as described on Wikipedia):

An 1985 advertisement for a weight gain product (Image from Wikipedia)

1. Awareness
2. Knowledge
3. Liking
4. Preference
5. Conviction
6. Purchase

Now, In Genesis 2, the expanded story of creation goes into some details about the interaction between God and creation. God created Adam and then made the statement, “It is not good that the man should be alone…”(v18). “Awareness.” Then God tasked Adam to name all the animals who were in pairs…Adam noticed something missing(v19-20). “Knowledge.” Following this, God did a little surgery, created woman, woke Adam up and presented her to him(v21-22). “Liking” Adam definitely liked what he saw, didn’t have many options to express a “preference”, quickly formed a “conviction” and made the “purchase” (v23-25).

It seems that the very first ad campaign was centered around a woman; makes sense that most modern day ad campaigns are centered around the woman too

But from there the next ad was based on a deception, an illegitimate way to fulfill a legitimate desire (Genesis 3. 1-7). So advertising is not a new invention. But advertising in modern history is unique and prolific. Our economy is dependent upon advertising. “Yankelovich, a market research firm, estimates that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day, compared with up to 5,000 today.” (NY Times article, Anywhere the Eye Can See, It’s Likely to See an Ad, 2007) And in modern times, it has become out of control with deception:

James Laver, a British historian, broadly described advertising during the 19^th century—a time when companies made outrageous claims which could not be proved, and with practically no regulation—as follows:

“Advertising is as old as Humanity: indeed, much older; for what are the flaunting colours of the flowers but so many invitations to the bees to come and “buy our product.” Advertising might be defined as any device which first arrests the attention of the passer-by and then induces him to accept a mutually advantageous exchange.”

In other words, advertising may be described as a mechanism for 1) getting the attention of an individual and then, 2) persuading that individual to engage in some kind of action—ultimately, to buy some type of service or product.
-David from historyofadvertising.blogspot.com

So we are constantly bombarded with messages from all sources and means seeking to persuade us to engage in some kind of action based on a certain proposed truth. Of course we are supposed to be protected by laws that seek to govern the truth of advertising in our society (that’s why we get the “fast talkers” at the end of car and drug commercials who are telling “the fine print” they are legally required to say). But all of us have bought into something that promised but didn’t deliver. And today’s marketing is even more powerful (keeping up with the culture), because it sells you a feeling, mostly through telling a story or convincing you of an alternate reality than you know…which conveniently can be achieved through their product/service.

Therefore, companies are selling “the good life”, offering you to “have it your way”, or selling “guaranteed joy”

Now think about how the gospel has been presented over the years…as a bill of goods based on truth to change your life and give you a different reality (even for eternity). But what about those that it doesn’t “work” for or the “product” testimony about it not “working” for someone else? Just today one of my coworkers gave me a stack of Keurig cups for my coffee maker in my office. I love my Keurig coffee maker and have had it for almost a year now, no problems. He just got one and it quickly broke. He returned it and donated the coffee to me! (of course I’m going to share, come on by) He deemed that the coffee maker isn’t worth the hassle. Now I am simplifying his experience for the illustration, and over-simplifying it to apply to the gospel, but this is how we operate. Religion/faith is not working for me, or someone else I know, so it’s not a product I am going to use.

So how are we preaching the gospel and what promises are we making…do we need some fast talkers after our sermons to give the disclosure statements

I jest, but tomorrow I want to continue on this theme to look at our presentation of the truth in what we call the good news…

Let me know your thoughts on truth in advertising.

We are reconciled to living only once, except through our children, for whom we are perfectly happy to notice that we must make way, and room. We speculate that it is at least possible that, once people accepted the fact of their short and struggling lives, they might behave better toward each other and not worse. We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true – that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow.
-(Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything; 2007, p5,6)

Hitchens not only gives testimony to his belief structure/philosophy but in the same breath gives a broad backhand to the faith of Christianity. Similarly, consider the words of one Christian turned agnostic, Charles Templeton:

The record of the Christian church is a checkered one. Over twenty centuries it has done immeasurable good…But the church has seldom been at its best. Too often it has been a negative influence. Too often it has stood in the way of progress…
And despite the fact that Jesus enjoined his followers to love one another, most don’t, each believing that only they have seen the true light of the Gospel and that all the others are in error.
-(Charles Templeton, Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith, 1996; p127,129)

And I could go on and on quoting those who have rejected or walked away from Christian faith.
As always, there is another side of the “coin”. Consider the words of those, still philosophically opposed to the Christian faith, who have a different testimony:

[William H.] Lecky spent his life advancing the cause of rationalism, attacking Christianity, and the supernatural. Yet read what Lecky has to say about Christ and Christianity: “It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character, which through all of the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hears of men with an impassioned love, has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions, and has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but also the strongest incentive to its practice, and has exercised so deep an influence that it may truly be said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all of the dispositions of philosophers and exhortations of moralists.” (D. James Kennedy, Skeptics Answered, 1997; p91)

Thomas Huxley / Image from Wikipedia

I have always been strongly in favor of secular education, in the sense of education without theology. But I must confess that I have been no less seriously perplexed to know by what practical measures the religious feeling, which is the essential basis of conduct, was to be kept up in the present utterly chaotic state of opinion on these matters without the use of the Bible. The pagan moralists lack life and color, take the Bible as a whole, make the severest deductions which bare criticism can dictate, and there still remains a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur. By the study of what other book could children be so much humanized and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between two eternities and earns the blessing of curse of all time, according to its efforts to do good and evil?
(Thomas Huxley, quoted from D. James Kenedy, Skeptics Answered, 1997 ; p94)

My point is not, “see look at what these people said, you must believe now.” I point out these testimonies to state that I believe the primary cause of one’s loosing or rejecting faith is because of this very reason…what difference has their experience with faith/religion made. What is this person’s experience with their own faith or the life of another person who is of the Christian faith? This is not the argument of pragmatism, “if it works, then its true”, but rather a call to Christians to be who we say we are (not claiming perfection) and to live as one who is being transformed by the truths we seek to defend, and thereby transforming our communities. In my theology, sin is sin, and it is harmful to the person committing it and to his/her community (possibly extending to the global community). It is sin if it is committed by an atheist, a theist, or a Christian. However, Christians have at times hid behind “absolute truth” to either justify or escape their own sin.

Too often appeals to the objective truth of the gospel have served as a means for the church to evade its responsibility to live faithfully before the world. In short, Christians insisted that the gospel was objectively true regardless of how we lived. The paradigm I am advocating frankly admits that all truth claims require for their widespread acceptance the testimony of trusted and thereby authorized witnesses. This is as true for the truth claims of science as it is for those of the church.
-(Philip D. Kenneson,”There’s No Such Thing as Objective Truth, and It’s a Good Thing, Too.” Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World. Edited by Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis L. Okholm. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995; p166)

I don’t think it will do us any good to objectively prove God’s existence (which I am not sure you can do nor can you prove God’s non-existence) or prove the Bible is absolute truth and live no different than those who reject such notions. The good news is that all humanity can admit his/her failings, be forgiven of those, be enabled to reorder life around the revealed character of God through Christ (faith), and seek to love others as they have been loved by God.

I do see strong similarities to the culture Paul faced and our current post-modern culture, and I felt drawn to agree that it seems humanity is only re-packaging the same patterns of thought in different skins, however I think upon closer review I must acknowledge a growth of human thought patterns which reaches to the past, assimilates it through what we have learned and lived and applies it in fresh new ways to a different set of cultural questions, assumptions, and problems. The post-modern epistemology is specifically POST-modern because it is a reaction/response to the modern. And the modern epistemology came about through the Enlightenment and thinkers such as Locke, Descartes, Kant, and others.

But before I continue in recent philosophy and developing theories, let me affirm that truth is something very important in scripture. Take a few passages as examples (emphases mine):

Jesus came “full of grace and truth” (John 1.14)
Jesus prayed for his followers, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” (John 17.17)
Jesus promised the Spirit of God to come, “he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth” (John 14.16,17)
Jesus claimed, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14.6)
Paul writes that truth can be suppressed by wickedness, “…by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” (Romans 1.18)
He further indicts humanity for worshiping a lie, “because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie…” (Romans 1.25)
Christians are told to test the spirits, “By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” (1 John 4.6)

And we could go on and on. This is nowhere near an exhaustive study on the uses of truth in the Bible. A quick search shows that in the ESV Bible the English word is used 141 times.

Image from Wikipedia

However, if we did a full study, we must acknowledge that we read the word “truth” with a perspective that is uniquely different than those before us who said or wrote those statements. Our concept of truth has been dramatically shaped by “Descartes’s theory of mind as mental process and Kant’s notion of philosophy as the tribunal of pure reason [which] helped produce many of the dichotomies that now appear self-evident: object/subject; realism/idealism; knowledge/opinion; fact/value; reason/faith; rational/irrational; public/private.” (Philip D. Kenneson) In a fascinating thesis, Kenneson, continues to evaluate the concept of objective truth which we have come to accept and attempt to defend:

Within such a view of knowledge, truth (or Truth) is not so much a concept as it is an entity “out there” in the world, waiting to be discovered; Truth is merely the word for the way the world really is which we are trying to picture or mirror with our knowledge. When human beings discover this Truth, picture it faithfully in their minds and mirror it accurately in their language, we say that they have genuine knowledge. Moreover, such knowledge is “objectively true” when its status as true does not ultimately depend on the testimony of any person or group of persons. Indeed, the whole point of claiming that something is “objectively true” is to say that any person, unhindered by the clouds of unreason and the prejudices of self-interest, would come to the same conclusion. (Philip D. Kenneson,”There’s No Such Thing as Objective Truth, and It’s a Good Thing, Too.” Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World. Edited by Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis L. Okholm. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995; pp. 157)

So is there another way or is our only option to categorize everyone as either an objectivist or relativist? Has the attempt to defend the faith according objective truth with modern constructs contributed to individuals disconnecting faith and “real life”? I would love to read some of your thoughts/reactions.

Trust me, I am going somewhere with this…and I’ll leave you with the quote below to whet your thoughts (there’s a mixed metaphor) for tomorrow’s conversation continuation:

Kierkegaard in a coffee-house, an oil sketch by Christian Olavius, 1843 (Image from Wikipedia)

“There is something missing in my life, and it has to do with my need to understand what I must do, not what I must know – except, of course, that a certain amount of knowledge is presupposed in every action. I need to understand my purpose in life, to see what God wants me to do, and this means that I must find a truth which is true for me, that I must find that Idea for which I can live and die.” (Søren Kierkegaard “An Entry from the Journal of the Young Kierkegaard”, quoted in Truth Decay by Douglas Groothuis, p10-11)

I’m not sure I could say that one or the other epistemology is more dangerous than the other, as there are great dangers in both approaches to knowledge and truth. I can say, however, that like it or not, we are in the times of postmodernity (some say even something beyond it) and there is great danger in not adapting and growing in science or faith. (for more on this in the scientific realm see the works of Thomas Kuhn)

“Postmodernism poses certain dangers. Nevertheless, it would be ironic – indeed, it would be tragic – if evangelicals ended up as the last defenders of the now dying modernity. To reach people in the new post modern context, we must set ourselves to the task of deciphering the implications of postmodernism for the gospel.” (Stanley Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism, p 10)

I have set myself to the task because I believe the gospel (good news for all peoples) is important, life-transforming, and transcends human trends or systems of thought. I believe that through the postmodern structure, one can actually strengthen the concept of Truth and bring some people back into the conversation who have dismissed the biblical faith as implausible. I think postmodernity is bringing “reason” to question more than it is bringing “truth” to question. It seems the modern thought structures gave human “reason” a sacred place of ultimate proof. Christian faith has an opportunity to grow stronger.

“Ironically, [Christians] who denounce postmodernism imply that Christian dogma cannot withstand rough handling, betraying perhaps a subconscious fear that the structure of Christianity might prove flimsy or false. Postmodernism, however, has exposed the flaws not of Christianity but of modernism, arguing that the modernist line of thought – which disdained Christianity – is “out of true.” Modernism therefore lasted only three hundred years, while Christian orthodoxy has stayed true for over two thousand years.” (Crystal L. Downing, How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith; p229-230)

It is interesting to take a look back to a time before modern epistemology and read the words of one of the great theologians and see how he thought. Martin Luther certainly had some choice words to say about reason as he lived in the pre-enlightenment era and was possibly resisting the encroachment of new ways of thinking:

Image from Wikipedia

“Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom… Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism… She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets.”
—Martin Luther, Works, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148.

“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but—more frequently than not—struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
—Martin Luther, Table Talks in 1569.

(quotes used from: Joshua Sowin’s blog)

Don’t get me wrong, I think human reason is a great tool, and I certainly wouldn’t go to the conclusions that seem to come from Luther’s words (perhaps even they are misunderstood out of original context). Reason is a very strong tool and necessary for science, faith and the rest of life. I believe we have a rational faith, that we can “prove,” through reason, many beliefs/doctrines, and can arrive at a strong historicity of the biblical texts we read today, but there must be room for something more, for supernatural, for mystery, for the unknown and unreasoned. There are things that we don’t yet know and some things we won’t know. We must be on the pursuit of truth through all disciplines.

On either side of this conversation we can get out of balance and be over taken by hubris attitudes, thus solidifying the divide and continuing the disconnection of some between faith and life. I believe that the recently deceased, outspoken author and self described antitheist, Chrsitopher Hitchens, is a person who took the enlightenment/modern epistemology to its logical end. You can hear both his huberistic disdain for faith/god andhis search for truth through human reason alone (along with a hint of postmodern openmindedness).

Christopher Hitchens

“Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically…but we shall resolve [our disagreements] by evidence and reasoning and not by mutual excommunication…

One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody…had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion…
All attempts to reconcile faith with science and reason are consigned to failure and ridicule for precisely these reasons.”
-(Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything; 2007, p64,65)

I leave you with those thoughts for today…more of Hitchens, Truth, and Christianity to come in the following days.

Now, Jason had a very good word in his comment that I need to emphasize before writing on this topic. FEAR. Appropriate word from Jason as this emotion/reaction often clouds our thinking and responses to what could otherwise be great conversations. Please don’t respond with fear as you read this post.

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For the Christians reading this, you must hear me say – I believe the Bible is Truth, every word of it (specifically in its original language), I believe that God inspired the biblical authors so that we humans can know God through knowing truth, and I believe that we have reliable English (and many other languages) translations by which we can study and know truth. (I am not going into the nuances of inerrancy or infallibility for this post, but rather am concerned with some philosophical approaches to truth in our postmodern cultures)

For those who are not of the Christian faith, you must hear me say – I hold my beliefs with firmness and with humility. I am very committed to what I believe as an individual, a husband, a father, a pastor, and one who is on mission to extend God’s grace to all peoples of the earth. Along with that, I am willing to discover truth in all of God’s creation in all disciplines of humanity. I would love to hear from all perspectives in this conversation.

I am an evangelical Christian and recognize that this evangelicalism was born out of the Enlightenment era and world view. However I was born in 1972 just as postmodernism was taking over (at least in America) our culture in mainstream thought. Over the years (especially in the last 7) I have read much and considered this epistemological struggle crucial to forwarding the message of Jesus Christ into the world now and the future. I believe that for Christians to continue to talk about truth as we have in the past (enlightenment/modern) will only cause more to walk away from their faith with the conclusion that faith has no bearing to their “real” life. To give some definition to what I am talking about, let me mention a paragraph from the work of Stanley Grenz:

“The Enlightenment perspective assumes that knowledge is not only certain (and hence rational) but also objective. The assumption of objectivity leads the modernist to claim access to dispassionate knowledge. Modern knowers profess to be more than merely conditioned participants in the world they observe: they claim to be able to view the world as unconditioned observers – that is, to survey the world from a vantage point outside the flux of history” (Stanley Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism, Eerdmans, 1996 p4)

All of us, in our pursuit of truth MUST acknowledge that none of us stand outside of a vantage point or bias, but we all come from a certain context and bring that context to our observations and interpretations. Now some would quickly say that the Bible is God’s revealed truth and God stands outside of time/history so it is unconditioned truth. This is valid to a point, however God chose to use human authors who are in time/history through which to reveal his eternal Truth. I believe even the fact that there are 4 perspectives (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John) of the earthly life and ministry of Jesus included in the canon of inspiration points to the multiperspectival dimension of truth. The four gospel perspectives all point to and are records of the same Truth but from different viewpoints. This is where humility must enter into our truth claims as Christians or any other discipline. Let’s back away from theology for just a bit and consider this in the field of science.

In Jason’s comment yesterday he linked a great and witty article about scientists’ new fascinating work with neutrinos possibly traveling faster than the speed of light thus potentially messing with Einstein’s theory of relativity. In this article, the author pointed to the dynamic nature of the discipline of science:

“The whole point of a scientific theory is that it is there to be shot down – to be shown to be false by new experimental evidence, or to be replaced with a better, more accurate theory that explains more.”

Now don’t throw stones yet I am not saying that the doctrines of Christianity are merely theories to be shot down or shown false. In science we have “laws” and “theories”, both of which can be challenged and overturned (we do live in the

Image from NASA

age where Pluto lost its planethood, a process in which Pluto didn’t change, but our understanding of it did) I believe that in theology we have some things that are “laws” that through the years and rigors of theology we can hold onto very strongly, allowing our core person and communities to be shaped by them. We also have “theories” (I’m even uncomfortable using that word in conjunction with doctrines) which in our best efforts express truth as we know it. We can trust these “theories” (beliefs), we can live life with confidence around these beliefs, but we continue to learn and grow as people created in God’s image (my bias) who are intelligent and seeking to know a God who can be known. And it is possible that through further studies, new evidences, additional experiments, different applications, etc. we come to better, more accurate explanations. (This is the task of theology after all)

Now, I think I have said enough for today and enough to process in some thoughtful commenting. Tomorrow, I shall continue with some about rationalism in the postmodern epistemology and more.

“84% of Christian 18- to 29-year-olds admit that they have no idea how the Bible applies to their field or professional interests. For example, young adults who are interested in creative or science-oriented careers often disconnect from their faith or from the church. On the creative side, this includes young musicians, artists, writers, designers, and actors. On the science-oriented side, young engineers, medical students, and science and math majors frequently struggle to see how the Bible relates to their life’s calling.” (Top Trends of 2011: Millennials Rethink Christianity)

It is alarming that young adults “have no idea how the Bible applies to their field or professional interests.” Unfortunately, I think (unscientifically) we could bump that age range up a decade or so and still be in the 70% range of American Christians identifying with that statement from The Barna Group.

image from Getty Images

This great disconnect isn’t something that has happened overnight and I believe that a key factor is the way that Christians have approached science. The logic that says, “Science tells me ________, but the Bible tells me _______, so science can’t be right” is just as dangerous as the other way around. The danger is just as potent because in both cases we are not dealing with simple raw data. Science is founded on examining empirical data, but how much of what “science says” has gone far beyond the data to drawing further conclusions, theories or interpretations of the data?

In response to yesterday’s post, my friend Dave, gave a strong comment from his experience in support of young earth and this being strengthened as he looked at the evidences during college. He made a statement that I would like to comment on further: “I believe the Bible is a tool to help us understand science…not the other way around.” I agree with the heart of his comment, but want to take a few steps back to examine and distinguish how I would arrive at a statement like this.

First, I believe that there are two types of revealed data about origins, life, the universe, God, etc. One is general revelation and can be found in the world/universe around, including people. This is commonly referred to as nature or the natural world. The other is specific or special revelation which I believe is the writings in the scriptures of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament. (Now some will disagree with the existence of any special revelation or with what is included in that special revelation, but that could be a topic of a further post) The key to this is that BOTH general and specific revelation consist of raw data that must be observed, interpreted, and applied. In that process we all bring certain presupposition and bias.

So science is the observation, interpretation, and application of general revelation (nature).

And faith is the observation, interpretation, and application of specific revelation (scripture).

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But these two disciplines are not isolated and one cannot reject the other and remain whole. The Hebrew poet was inspired to write,

“The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded them.” (Psalm 89.11)

What we observe from what God has created will coincide with God’s special revelation. So then it comes down to interpretation from both directions.

I believe the problem has occurred and will continue to occur when there is an interpretation or application that is concluded in either that doesn’t seem to work with or, more severely, is in contradiction with the other. At this point of disagreement it is important to go back to each area of discipline and observe more, re-interpret (if applicable), and re-apply in both areas. When we do this, I am confident that science and faith can work together and not only “get along” but strengthen each other. But if either discipline digs in and says “I’m right” without reexamination, then we end up with an embarrassing Galileo situation.

So then I can say that the Bible is a tool to help us understand science AND science (general revelation) can be used as a tool to help us interpret the Bible.

Further, this philosophical approach will help Christians (young and old) have a greater understanding of how the Bible informs their career, professional interests, and life calling AND how their life calling helps them and others have a greater understanding of the scriptures. We need individuals of faith to be in all fields of academia to enrich our understanding of both God’s special revelation and general revelation. A person in the field of medicine can be greatly enriched by his/her faith in fundamental respect for life and purpose of creating a better life medically. A gifted writer has greater purpose in writing when biblical faith is present to not only write true or inspiring stories, but words that serve a purpose greater than himself/herself.  There is no career path that is untouchable by the individual’s faith.

Now this post has mostly been in the theoretical realm, so I leave it to you to comment with support or disagreement and possibly bring up some specific applications or questions.