I was cleaning up my office about a month back and found a book that I had borrowed from a friend for research purposes. The book was entitled Right from Wrong by Josh McDowel and Bob Hostetler (this is how the names appear on the book; which makes me question, though I may be wrong, McDowel's involvement in the actual writing other than printing his name on the cover). There was a section concerning "Absolute Truth" that caught my eye. As I started to read, I found out quickly that "Many of our youth [you could likely insert people in general] simply do not understand or accept absolute truth," (p. 17). I was shocked; appalled at this injustice. Why the nerve of those people. How dare they not fall in line with McDowel's opinions. How dare they challenge the beliefs of the conservative right. Blasphemy.
Hopefully you have read past my sarcasm. In fact, though McDowel made it out to be a surprise, I was entirely un-shocked with his assessment. Of course no one believes in absolute truth. It's part of Canadian culture; the only absolute is that there are no absolutes. Einstein's theory has become fact. Didn't you get the memo Josh.
But seriously, this issue of truth and whether it swings absolutely or relatively seems to expand further than the realm of philosophy. In essence, it is the reason for this blog in the first place; and thus, appropriate as its first posting. We must believe in both absolute and relative truth (if at least our only absolute truth is that "all truth is relative"). The difficult thing is discovering which is absolute and which is relative; which is black/white and which is grey. The problem is compounded when people like McDowel (don't get me wrong, I know he means well) bring Christianity into the mess. People like this seem to start arguing for religion (though they may never admit it): a system of rules in which all things are either right or wrong. They make Christianity a culture, when it should always remain a faith. Once it becomes a culture it is trapped into a specific time and setting. Thus going against its very nature.
If we understand Christianity to be a faith not a culture, then we must take a whole different approach to discerning "right from wrong." We must not only include the "absolutes" or principles learned from scripture as it is communicated through ancient culture; but also consider principles learned from current culture. Matching these two worlds and "navigating the grey" is the responsibility of every person. This is why God has given us the church; our journeying partners.
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a community orientated approach to discussing the grey areas of life and learning to navigate them together
7 comments:
I actually have a copy of that book as well. I purchased it right before starting Bible college. It was one of many Christian books that I have bought expecting something completely different than what I got. I was hoping that the book would be an explanation of christian morality. At the time, I was really interested in knowing what was right and wrong and more importantly why. I was hoping for a book that would explain things like why a person shouldn't abuse drugs or the reasoning behind any sort of right from wrong types of issues. I was quite dissapointed when the book tried to shock me with statistics... I wonder how usefull this book was and to who...
If todays youth don't know right from wrong, Josh, then why don't you write a book telling us what it is and why rather than writing an entire book with statistics about what we don't know... Maybe it was writen for older people?
Cool Idea.
I think truth is obviously relative. It's obviously a matter of relation. Truth, (in terms of what seems to me to be regular human usage), is the act whereby we witness/testify rightly and accurately to/about a person or event or whatever. Truth is an act. The truth value of the witness/testimony/word is relative to its faithfulness and accuracy to that to which is witnessed/testified to.
The real question is then "how can I know if I am witnessing/testifying rightly/faithfully???" That's not always easy. But who every thought living in the truth is easy anyway???
I understand where Josh is coming from. For a while in America, even the "bad people" knew their were "bad". Now that kind of basic moral intuition has changed a bit.
Personally, I don't think that's a particularly Christian concern. Christianity is not about getting America moral, its about God rescueing the world from sin and death. I think the concerns about morality aren't stupid, they should just be persued by people acting as American citizens, not member of Christ. Then again, maybe Josh is concerned about youth who are members of Christ. Well that's a totally different thing.
I say Christian moralty is gospel morality. The problem in America is not that they don't teach moarlity enough in Church. Instead all they teach is morality and weird stuff about receiving blessings from God.
Gospel morality is all about telling the story about what God is doing Christ to save the world from sin and death. Forming a city of God in the midst of the city of Man. Our lives change because of faith which is formed as we here the story over and over. Its not our job to make sure the city of Man stays moral. The Church will servive if America goes to hell. America is not the Church. I think we all need to get ready for the Church to return to life as a minority. Life underground. That's fine I guess. I suppose its not up to us anway.
Adam said:"People like this seem to start arguing for religion (though they may never admit it): a system of rules in which all things are either right or wrong. They make Christianity a culture, when it should always remain a faith. Once it becomes a culture it is trapped into a specific time and setting. Thus going against its very nature."
I'm with you on this but I'd say it differently. Differents strokes I guess.
I say religion is fine as far as it goes - taking care of widows, orphans, the poor. (James)
So Christianity is religious in certain senses, as Chrisitianity defines "religous" in its own way.
Christianity is not a culture in the sense that its not American culture, or Roman, or Canadian, or Greek, or French, or Western or whatever.
But it is culture in some senses. Its a culture in the sense that it has a history of beliefs, practices, art, song, story, heroes (etc.) past down from generation to generation.
Nevertheless, we should never identify the city of Man with the city of God. God's kingdom will not be destoryed if America gets really immoral. Or Canada. Or the United Nations. Or whatever. We Christians are a weird subculture living across the cultures of the world, and in the cultures of the world.
So I say rather than always talk about "Christianity" lets talk about "the Church". The Church is a people who witness to Christ, and tell a story - the Gospel. So we are really all about the story of how God is rescuing the world. Morality (as in public civil morality) is not an especially Christian concern. Our main concern being a living testimony/word to Jesus who is himself THE WORD, THE TRUTH. Now doing this is a uniquely Christian concern. I say if we keep ourselves busy with that we'll be on the right track.
... must get back to homework!!! procrastinating with blog comments of unreasonable lenght!!!
I think that grace through faith in christ is the most important thing for the church to teach....
But I also think that churches and sunday schools (or maybe just where I grew up) fail to adequetly discuss moral values. I use the word values because I like it when talking about morality. Even though some people would eat me alive for saying this, I think that the practical implications of moral decisions are a very important thing to discuss. Some people don't like looking at utilitarian reasons for biblical moral values because it means obeying biblical morals for your own benefit rather than to glorify God.
I donno...
I think it's very christian to look at moral choices and the reasons for making them... I like the word values because it sounds less restrictive and more all encompasing than other words used to discuss morality...
I don't think enough of the sermons that I've seen in my life where about values and specific struggles of life....
that's just my perspective on values... what are we talking about again?
I don't think its a specificly Christian task to ensure civic/public morality so the country doesn't collapse.
Sure, reflecting on how we should live, what we should consider valuable, and what our choices should be is a specifically Chrisitian task. A task the Church must engage in. But I think this is different from the above.
I think the way we do this is by preaching the Gospel to ourselves and refecting on it. Allowing ourselves to be shaped by the story of God. Here, by Gospel I don't mean "grace through faith on account of Christ alone". That's a summary of one of the implications of the gospel - an answer to a question "what must I do to be saved and counted among God's people?" By Gospel I mean the goodnews - the story - about what God is doing in Christ to rescue the world. This inlcudes Creation, Fall, Abraham, Israel, Babylon, Jesus, Acts, Romans etc.
How we as Church behave, and value, and choose is not determined by abstract ethical theories, but by metitation upon the Gospel, the Law, the history of interpretation of these inthe Church.
For long periods in Church history, in the City of Man, men, for all practical purposes did not value truth. If it happens again, or is happening, the City of God will be fine thank you very much. We may suffer, but we'll survive.
We, as the Church, can enter the public debate about civic morality... but we need to be careful that we don't start thinking that this is our purpose for existence. Jerry Farwell needs to hear this I think. Certainly, if we care about people, we should care about civic morality. But we need to be ready to accept the fact that we may not win the civic morality battle. At least for now. At thats fine, in a certain sense.
In a demacracy it get complicated. We are the rulers of the City of Man, as voters. Yet we are also citzens of the City of God. I just hope we Christian can think some more about how we should live a the Church. We need to focus on cultivating virtue in our own lives.
So my contribution is this: how about instead of morality, moral values etc.... how about the cultivation of virtue and earthy wisdom concerning virtue lived out in North America. As a city within a city.
I like the way Ed made reference to Christians living in both the City of God and the City of Man. We hold dual citizenship. And this dual citizenship is often the source of our struggles. We agonize over how to live in both cities and be loyal to both kings. Historically, (at least in recent history) I see two solutions to this dilemma.
One is to adhere only to the City of God forgetting and even forsaking the City of Man. Making citizenship in God’s city our only concern. Building moral walls around us for protection. Expecting all those outside to either get in or get out. In this approach we trump God’s love with his holiness.
The other is to vacation so long in the City of man that we begin forget where we are from. We see God’s holiness only as it relates to his love for all people. In this approach we sacrifice or change God’s law so that all may live by it with ease.
Both of these approaches are incorrect. Both let culture become primary and faith secondary. The first turns Christianity into a culture and the second turns culture into Christianity. To live between these approaches is messy. It’s difficult. There isn’t a set of rules that we can follow or dismiss. It’s a life of walking in grey fog. Trying to figure out how best we can live. How we best can allow our faith to impact our culture.
(Aside: I am not saying that Christianity doesn't have a rich history of culture. It does. But it’s history, and not just Western history, is so culturally rich when it’s not bound to one culture but communicated through all cultures. – I hope that makes sense)
It gets really confusing sometimes. Part of being in the City of God involves love of neighbor, not just God. So being in the City of God right now requires being in the City of Man. It involves being a good citizen of the City of Man.
Clarification concerning Christianity being a culture, in a certain sense, even as it is trans-cultural in another.
Christianity is NOT a culture, in the sence that we must never indentify the City of Man with the City of God. So America is not the Church. Neither is Rome. Neither is France, Canada, the Republican party, or the NDP etc. There is not a definite Christian music style for all time. There is not a Christian pottery for all time that all Christians must use.
Christianity IS a culture in sense that the Church is a community that exists in history. We have beliefs that we pass on from generation to generation: the Gospel, love for Jesus, the whole Bible and the history of its interpretation, creeds etc. We can look back at people through history and say, 'hey, those people are my people.' Even as we disagree with them and are very different from them. I guess basically I want to say that if the Church is a community it has a culture and tradition, by defintion. Not a static one. Or an authoritative one. Or one that simply states with is how Christians make pots, or this is how we make music. Or one that entails that if you want to become a Christian you have to take on the whole history of western culture. That would be the City of Man.
My only issue with calling Christianity a faith and not a culture is that it might (might, not necessarily) entail that Christianity is an idealogy that exists outside of the community which confesses Christ. As if it is an "ism". A set of beliefs that never becomes embodied in "cultural type" activities in history. I know we agree on this very matter. We both agree that being a Christian is not a matter of organizing our beliefs propperly and then getting on with things as usual... its a way of being human... its a lived experience... its cultural in that limited sense.
So like you said, there is no definitive single Christian politic. Yet being Christian should affect our politics. We ought to love our neighbors etc.
This is good stuff to talk about. Thanks Adam, Heather, Craig (and lurkers). I look forward to more interesting discusstion here.
aaaahh... much too long... back to homework.
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