Not long ago I was out on visitation to visit a family who had recently visited the church. But before I went out I used “Google Earth” to locate the address and print out a map. I even went so far as to zoom in on the earth map to get an idea of what their house looked like. I was confident I knew where to go and had the right address. That night it was raining and seemed especially dark. But I was sure that between my research, printed directions, and GPS navigation I would find the right address. I was really proud of myself for thinking ahead as I headed out that evening. I just knew I would find the address and arrive on time for my visit with the new family. All was going well until I came within striking distance of success. As I was approaching their house, in the rain, I miss read a street sign and turned down the wrong street. Even my GPS could not help at this point because I was so close. But the house at the address I pulled up to didn’t look anything like the picture I had seen on “Google Earth.” I was now a bit confused but proceeded to get out of my car and walk up the drive way for the visit. Part way up my doubts grew stronger so I turned around and walked back down the driveway and up to the street corner to double check the street address. I was on the wrong street! The street I needed was a couple hundred feet away.
I wonder what would have happened if I had applied postmodern epistemology? For the postmodernist there is no absolute objective truth. Would the folks answering the door on the wrong street address have said, “Come on in, we’re as good as the folks a block away. We’re just like them.” Hmmm… I wonder how the family I was supposed to visit and was waiting for me would have taken that concept of truth upon my non-arrival?
But for many evangelicals that is exactly how we approach Christ. For the postmodernist evangelical it is all about relationship and objective truth is unnecessary. William H. Willimon of Duke University in the 1996, March 4th issue of “Christianity Today, pp 21-22, makes exactly that argument. Evangelicals, according to Willimon, “are making a tactical mistake.” “…Jesus did not arrive among us enunciating a set of propositions that we are to affirm.” He suggests that Jesus came inviting us to follow Him. But just exactly how are to follow Christ if we have no information about Him that is based on reality and objective truth? For Willimon it was not important that a person understand or hold to any propositional truths concerning Jesus which might be characterized as objective truth. With that kind of logic the Jesus of Mormonism or Islam will do nicely. And of course this kind of logic has also extended itself to the authority of the Scriptures. For the postmodernist Christian, the bible is authoritative simply because “the community of faith” has granted it this status, not because the Scripture claim to be the infallible, inerrant word of God and authoritative within its self.
Continue reading ‘The Jesus of Postmodernism Has No Address’
“It is as much a crime to disturb the peace when truth prevails as it is to keep the peace when truth is violated. There is therefore a time in which peace is justified and another time when it is not justifiable. For it is written that there is a time for peace and a time for war and it is the law of truth that distinguishes the two. But at no time is there a time for truth and a time for error, for it is written that God’s truth shall abide forever. That is why Christ has said that He has come to bring peace and at the same time that He has come to bring the sword. But He does not say that He has come to bring both the truth and falsehood.”
For me, there is no more glorious a thought than to know that I rest in the saving hands of God (
man does not live differently from what he did before, both at home and abroad, his repentance needs to be repented of, and his conversion is a fiction. Not only action and language, but spirit and temper must be changed. … Abiding under the power of any known sin is a mark of our being the servants of sin, for ‘his servants yea are to whom ye obey.’ Idle are the boasts of a man who harbors within himself the love of any transgression. He may feel what he likes, and believe what he likes, he is still in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity while a single sin rules his heart and life. True regeneration implants a hatred of all evil; and where one sin is delighted in, the evidence is fatal to a sound hope. …
“Though the Lord, by electing his people, adopted them as his sons, we, however, see that they do not come into possession of this great good until they are called; but when called, the enjoyment of their election is in some measure communicated to them. For which reason the Spirit which they receive is termed by Paul both the “Spirit of adoption,” and the “seal” and “earnest” of the future inheritance; because by his testimony he confirms and seals the certainty of future adoption on their hearts.” ~ John Calvin, “Institutes of the Christian Religion” 3.24.1, A New Translation, by Henry Beveridge, Esq Volume First Edinburgh: Printed for The Calvin Translation Society M.DCCC.XLV)
In the early 70’s I came to know Christ as my Lord and Savior. These were glorious times as I and many others in the church I attended experienced our early years of discipleship. The church was in Ashland Oregon. It was a small church meeting on the outskirts of town. I can remember before my conversion driving by on many occasions, the church in a storefront, wondering what kind of cult Ashland Bible Church was. Then one Wednesday evening I found myself getting out of a Sherriff’s patrol car in the parking lot of the church just as the midweek service concluded. Not exactly the typical entrance one would want or others would expect! The next several weeks it was amazing how this little congregation accepted me, even with all the trappings of a sinful world most evident in my dress and mannerism. I would sit each service in the homemade grey plywood pews and was inwardly very critical of the simple services that were offered. The pianist was an eighty+ year old woman, playing very tradition gospel hymns and the pastor was a middle aged man preaching from a very simple one step platform in the front of the auditorium with an 8 foot ceiling and florescent lights. But I wasn’t alone as the church was in the middle of an influx of young college age, drug using, and commune living hippie types. What a mix in the middle of this traditional middle class, aging, Bible believing church. This church existed in a college town that was known for its party atmosphere, occult influence, and as sexually promiscuous. This little church in no way looked like the culture it was surrounded and immersed in. It really was to the extreme, counter cultural. By today’s church growth gurus, Ashland Bible Church was not “incarnational”1 or “missional”2 and certainly didn’t have a grasp of cultural contextualization. They were a simple people who were astounded and overjoyed at what God was doing in their midst. They knew nothing of the latest ecclesiastical fads and saw no biblical reason to compromise their holy, separated living for the sake of reaching people for Christ. Yet they reached a group of young people with love and compassion and reaped the fruit of souls saved by the grace of God.
Not long ago I wrote an article about a church that sent out a flier inviting people to their church based nothing more than the felt needs of the individual (Java, A Core Value). It was a church where “the band is loud, and gallons of coffee are a core value.” The idea here was to lay aside any fears one might have and see that the church was for regular people ( at least those considered regular in the Puget Sound region). The invitation was laced with; “ no perfect people allowed”, “ a place to be yourself, grow spiritually, build friendships, make a difference, and have a blast”, and “its imperative to find and fulfill your unique purpose in life”. This has become the common mantra of the Evangelical church under guise of evangelism. John MacArthur, writing on this phenomenon states; “That’s all great if you’re a coffeehouse. But anyone who claims to be calling people to the gospel of Jesus with those priorities is calling them to a lie” (John MacArthur, “Hard to Believe”, Thomas Nelson Publishing, 2003, pg. 2). A few pages later, commenting on 
Recent Comments