Radicals Unite! . . . in the middle.

Allow me to share some song lyrics (I'll highlight the ones to really pay attention to):

. . .like a broken boat; safety raft; a love for the water
And I just can't decide
To sink or swim, it's me or them
Should I save myself?
Or go back for the others

Cause maybe there's no gray
And I was wrong to tell 'em so
And maybe all that I've to do
Was done a long time ago. . .

And I've been putting up, putting down
Too many things I know nothing about
Cause I'm jealous and holding pride
As tight as I can, like she was my only daughter

(Chorus)
But there was life before my life
There was provision before my need
There was redemption before my sin
For the sake of the world, I thank the Lord
That the Truth's not contingent on me

So, let me explain. This is a song by Caedmon's Call called The Truth. It's got some other amazing lyrics in it so I highly recommend listening to it. The whole song is a reflection on this guy's selfishness and sinfulness. It expresses his hopelessness in the face of trying to do things for God, and then the chorus comes.

C.S. Lewis describes God as the rock-bottom reality that all else is based on. He is reality. Reality is truth. Or maybe I should say, Reality is Truth. That is the Christian/Judaic/Islamic view of God at its most basic level. What all these religions are getting at is that there is an absolute Reality that underlies everything. And, I find that this is not an idea that many people these days struggle with, except maybe for the very people who would claim the above listed religions.

As religious people, I find that we have gotten the idiotic idea that we need to protect truth. All fundamentalism is based on the idea that there are evil forces in the world which, unless we come to save the day, will corrupt the truth and that is the equivalent of hell. Now I would be all for fundamentalism, IF we could erase the part between the commas, but I find the majority of the time that part is the meat of the sentence. Evil exists (please tell me no one really questions this). Evil is by nature out to corrupt what is true. Still, as finite beings, how are we going to really do anything about this?? Yet too often we humans step in triumphantly with our firm religious beliefs and let God know we have it covered. I think this is what leads me to believe that the majority of fundamentalists out there are truly deists.

I say all of this because I spent an hour today talking to one of my good friends about how the Bible is true. I was doing my best, which might not be very good, to explain the whole emergent, post-foundationalist movement to him. I'm not much of a scholar on the movement, but I know it's basic premise is to get beyond literalist hermenuetics or liberal scholarship as the foundation of Christian faith. The basic question, though, still came down to: if Scripture isn't the foundation of faith then how can it be employed to change people's lives? Essentially, if Scripture isn't truth, then we can't expect it to transform people. Now to my friend this is a vital question. He's a counselor. He is daily faced with the way sin has screwed people up. And he will be the first to tell you, it's the truth in Scripture that he has seen change people. And it sure does seem like if we give an inch by not claiming Scripture as our absolute, then we have no choice but to go the whole mile and slide downward into radical pluralism.

But before all resort to picket signs with trite references to slippery slopes and so on, allow me to finish. I haven't arrived at a definitive answer on this. Part of living in an emerging paradigm is not having such answers, so don't hold your breath. I'm not sure I plan to join Brian McLaren in claiming myself to be a post-foundationalist. I claim God and the person of Jesus Christ as the only foundation that is absolute, but it is a foundation. I think Scripture is the only access to Jesus that is reliable. Is it perfect? Well, I'll get to inspiration another time. But more importantly, if it's not, does my faith crumble? Praise God, NO!!

The world if full of black and white issues. And if you're like me and have a vast appreciation for gray, you find that everyone thinks you're wrong. Still, I refuse to get caught up in arguments, slinging mud at the other side when I really don't even know the assumptions they're basing their arguments on. I am not at all, and very, conservative. I am not at all, and very, liberal. I blatantly refuse to pick sides. If you believe the Bible is inerrant, you're still sinful and so is your interpretation. If you put more trust in scholarship and philosophy, you'll quickly find that your beliefs strangely seem to benefit mostly you, while the rest of the world goes to hell before dying. Either way, I figure I'm in bad shape if I join.

Reality = Truth. Foundationally there is God. He is the Rock that all else is built on. He requires nothing and no one to defend Him. Lies need defending; Truth is invulnerable. Let the world tear the Bible to pieces, a thousand years from now (should the world still exist) it will still transform its readers. It is the only window to the only man who incarnates the absolute, foundational, rock-bottom Reality.