Live.Awake

The Nature of Truth

// May 24th, 2007 // Christian Living

James Dobson is famous for asking young Christian leaders this question:

Why do you believe the Bible is the authoritative and sufficient Word of God?

The answers he gets are strikingly consistent. Almost without fail, the answers go something like:

Because I believe it. I have faith!

This response should not shock you, but it should disturb you. It disturbs me not because these kids don’t know how the canon was formed, or that the scriptures are inspired (God-breathed), self affirming, or any of the other myriad of good answers to that question. What disturbs me is the world view that is revealed in their answers.

We live in an age where belief determines truth. What’s true is now only true for the individual and cannot then be applied to everyone. What’s true for you is fine, but it may not be true for me (unless I decide that it is). So, in effect, our belief creates truth. We call this tolerance. Truth is no longer something to be discovered, but rather it is something to be created and something that evolves over time as our experiences shape it.

So we end up with a society that forms personal religious beliefs like picking from a menu a la carte. A little Muslim, a little New Age, with a dash of Jesus (as a teacher or prophet, not as Lord), and a dollop of Oprah on top for garnish. Everyone ends up with their own fatty concoction that is neither nutritious or appetizing. They create customized belief systems that are full of internal conflicts and impotency. Yet they look at each other, hold their useless beliefs in the air and cheer for their diversity.

So let me be clear. Christianity is fully, completely, without exception incompatible with EVERY other religious system past, present or future. The Bible is clear as crystal about this! Are we just going to ignore John 14:6? Tear that page out because it’s “true for us, but not true for them”?

In our attempt to obey Christ by loving our neighbors, we have dimwittedly allowed our children and our churches to believe that the truth is not something to be discovered, but rather an ever changing journey with no ultimate destination. As a result, postmodernism is eating their lunch while they sit wide-eyed and placidly content.

You can shut [Jesus] up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ~CS Lewis

The truth is more than an idea, a philosophy or religious system of dogma. The truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ must be contended with.

Cheers and stone throwing welcome in the comments!

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