My The Idolatry of Truth post has gotten a lot of attention due to its being linked on an anti-emerging church site, Slice of Laodicea.
I’ve responded both on the Slice site and on the blog here through the comments, but I felt that a response in my own voice was appropriate. Please listen to the whole thing. I’m a little harsh in the first minute because of my reaction to some of the Slice commenters, but it is an honest telling of how I feel. Please take the time to listen to the podcast if you’re interested in this issue at all.
Thanks!
http://www.alanhartung.com/podcasts/a-different-perspective-15.mp3
Thanks for your thoughts!
Your different perspective is one i find refreshing, that the church needs.
To those who disagree with you, I ask how can you seperate theology from ministry, belief from practice? You can’t, without ministry all you have is philosophy; without theology all you have is social service.
One flows from the other, inseparably, and this is why we must not wait until we have the right knowledge to act, nor have the right actions to believe.
The problem is that we have people who measure thier “walks” by what they know, not who they are. The church is full of people who know alot about GOd, scripture, church, forgiveness, but are unloving, unforgiving, gossiping, and mean. This is the result of the idol of truth, people who are comfortable being “unchristian,” but believing “christian.”
JoeBum
February 17th, 2006
Look forward to listening.
Let me also say that it is a waste of time attempting to carry on any type of conversation with our brothers and sisters at SoL. They’re not interested in hearing anything but their own voice, so why waste the time?
blind beggar
February 17th, 2006
I enjoyed your original post. The futility of discussion in some arenas both interests me and frustrates me. For example, in your comment section on the original post, many people have attributed motives and beliefs to you without any understanding of your beliefs.
grace
February 18th, 2006
Thanks all for the support!
Blind beggar - I guess I’m just a masochist.
Actually, while most of the people from that site are totally unreasonable and refuse to read something without a kneejerk reaction (evidenced by a clear misunderstanding of what I have written), some will engage in dialogue. I will talk with those whom will talk with me, and whether we come to agreement or not, at least we will both be sharpened in the exchange.
I gave up on trying to engage them on a lot of their posts, even at emergentno.com, but this time they came into my house. So if they’re willing to talk, I’ll talk.
Alan
February 18th, 2006
Alan, I posted the following comment on that site. Since it is still subject to approval, and it may not make it, I would like to repost it here if you don’t mind.
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People need to step back and re-read what Alan was trying to say before jumping all over him. He is not advocating telling lies in lieu of truth.
He demonstrates the conservative evangelical obsession with doctrinal purity which I concurr is the major pathology of conservative evangelicalism.
The obsession with doctrinal purity gives way to the point of worshipping the likes of John MacArthur. Take it from me. I attended his church for 3 years and fellowshipped in a college group sactioned by Grace for several years as well. At least one of my shelves is packed with his commentaries, study guides, and books.
The mentality goes something like this. Since John MacArthur is a great teacher, and he has spent his entire life in studying Scripture, I will just piggy back on him and blindly follow his teachings. If he is “wrong”, it is probably around 1 % of the time, which is much better than I can do on my own, so it is a risk that I will gladly take.
I see people in evangelical mega churches such as Grace Community Church thinking like that. I thought that when I went there. No way I could do better than MacArthur, so why not gobble up everything he teaches and leave the thinking to him?
If this is not the fulfillment of “but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,” (II Tim 4:3), I don’t know what is.
That what Alan says does not jibe with your “saints and heros” such as MacArthur doesn’t mean he is out to lunch.
Welcome to the era of the personality cult.
David Cho
February 18th, 2006
David -
No way that comment gets through at Slice
Post here any time.
Alan
February 18th, 2006
Well, now that you’re predicting that my comment won’t get through, Ingrid will post it just to prove you wrong :-).
David Cho
February 18th, 2006
David,
A bit a sweeping generality there wouldn’t you say?
Cennan
February 18th, 2006
Cennan,
Given that I am contributing as a guest on Alan’s blog, I don’t think I should write a novel here, hense what you perceive to be a sweeping generalization. If there is a specific point that you wish to address, spell it out. We will take it from there.
David Cho
February 19th, 2006
Alan,
I’ve been a casual observer of the Emerging Church phenomenon and have to say so far (and being just a casual observer, remarks are nowhere near conclusive), it would seem to me that the language and theology emerging from the movement is ‘pleasing to the ears’ (having been a Christian 30yrs), but when scrutinized, lacks substance.
It seems to me that the core of the movement’s convictions is 60% anti-western christianity (more a negative reaction to Christian tradition than a coherent system of convictions) and 40% secular philosophy (with a whole heap of postmodern culture written into it). All of this covered with language and rhetoric that hides and shrouds more than it reveals.
A case in point is the above-mentioned podcast. At best, it lacks substance and at its worst, it’s downright contradictory.
the podcast is an exercise in irony…and everything after the first 5 minutes seemed repetitive and redundant. You keep going on about “it’s not right”- not right that people are mean to you, not right for them to start name-calling, not right for people to bank their faith on intellectual truth…
you ask the church to be ‘nice’ and ‘loving’….
but the whole spirit of your podcast is one big ‘name-calling’, opponent-attacking, pants-dropping exercise against those who have spoken against you. Brownie points for covering the entire speech with a nicely pitched tone of voice that begs for people’s sympathy, flourished with a heap of rhetorical niceties, but in essence, you’ve just painted yourself out to be a someone who wants to play the game, but can’t take the knocks when it comes to you.
furthermore, you go about making propositional statements about what is true (that the church makes Intellectual Truth an idol) but leave ambiguous your own sources of this Truth. Having just disarmed your opponents from making propositional truth statements from the Bible (by saying that the Bible is one very complex library of books from which no systematic theological truth can be derived); how then do you go about making your statements and expect others to believe them to be true? On what basis do you appeal to us? Surely not the Bible, which you deem too complex to draw any real system of Intellectual Truth. What then is your basis of authority?
Logic? Rationale? Culture? Morality? Our “common sense”?
And how may I ask are all these defined? What foundations do we stand on as fellow believers, if we don’t have the Bible for recourse? Our innate sense of right and wrong?
You can see where this is headed right? You’ve bashed up the only thing we can draw our faith and authority from- the Bible. You’ve completely confused us as to what Truth is (all the time, making statements that we are supposed to believe are ‘truthful’) and then you beckon us to be Bible-believing Christians- to love and be nice? On what basis- your version of the Bible Truth? How are you any more trustworthy than the evangelical Christian heritage you’re trying to divorce yourself from?
As I mentioned before, as a casual observer, its hard to come to any conclusive remarks…but should any of the above have any ring of truth in them- the natural consequence would be alarmingly familiar. Men and women would now for all effective purposes, act as their own judges as to what is true, what is right and who they choose to believe in (of course this done with the just the right amount of ‘Christian’ rhetoric). Instead of the Word of God judging culture and humanity; the converse becomes true. Sounds like we’re back at square one Gen chapter 3.
I guess my question is- if not the Bible and doctrine passed on to us through the work of the Spirit in the “already-not yet” state of the Body of Christ, then what? Some ‘emerging’ theological statements (that we are supposed to regard us true and authoritative) that smacks of postmodern philosophy and current culture?
While my prejudices with the emerging church movement are I’m sure apparent, I’m asking more questions here than I am trying to build a case for the ‘other side’. These are truly exciting times in the life of the Church.
In any case, thanks for letting your own prejudices hang so publicly; these thoughts were only made possible because of your own courage to speak. Praying the Lord will build His Church, that our Father’s Kingdom may advance in Christ.
Terence
March 22nd, 2006
Terence -
Sometimes dialogue and conversation is impossible. I see that for many of those who have criticized this post, discussing the issues and even half-attempting to understand what I’ve been saying is out of the question. There is nothing I can do about that.
Your comment seems to waffle between that type of critic and someone who wants to dialogue. However, I’m tempted to construe what little there was in your comment more as sarcasm than interest in what I have to say.
My words in this podcast were not rhetoric, as you suggest. And I think your understanding of “the game” is sorely lacking if you think it has to be played in the manner of those who came here from a site dedicated to criticizing, often in nasty ways, people like me. Criticize all you want. Hold whatever authoritative, propositional statement you want. Just at least try to do it with some sort of respect for other human beings.
Your critiques amount to what I have often heard from opponents of the emerging church. In short, because we advocate a different understanding of the authority of Scripture and see some limitations in human understanding (though the text may be infallible we are anything but), we don’t respect the Bible and see it as a source for knowledge. That is patently untrue. Many emerging church persons read the Scriptures more and get more out of them than when they parts of established churches.
Also, since we don’t believe persons can be objective, we’re told we can’t make authoritative statements and have to listen to nonsensical philosophical arguments against something we don’t even believe. I believe in an objective reality. I merely state, repeatedly in many different ways, that each person’s perspective of reality is different. It does not mean it is inaccurate, it does not mean we cannot know anything, it simply means we’re not perfect in our understanding.
One last thing, my innate sense of right and wrong is the conviction of the Holy Spirit, which sometimes, but not always, uses the Bible. Your wording runs dangerously close to treating the Scriptures as God, and hence the point of this podcast and the post that led to it.
Alan
March 22nd, 2006
Alan,
Thanks for your response and appreciate your attempt to continue trying to dialogue despite the inherent challenges of our fallen nature.
Allow me to clear up my WAFFLE.
Yes, my comments WERE subjective (and bordering on sarcasm), because your podcast left me completely baffled at the glaring hyprocrisy of your manner. I do not usually make comments on blogs (this being my first), but your podcast helped blast me out of my passivity. So yes, the spirit of my comments were NOT objective and I WAS rising up in protest to your very emotional ‘bashing’ of other people’s equally emotional response to your statements. It’s a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.
The ‘game’ you’re ‘playing’ as far as my comments were concerned, was the striking out from the ‘emerging church’ camp against the ‘established’ church- if you’re going to call the ‘established church’ names, bash down their traditions, call heresy their theology and praxis and make the word ‘established’ and ‘institionalized’ bad words in Christendom, then all I’m saying is when ‘they’ start throwing stones back, don’t get all religious and self-righteous on them. Bare your cross and keep silent in persecution, continuing to preach your Gospel and let God be your avenger right?
I have no personal argument with the ‘emerging church’ theology. As far as THAT is concerned, I’m a person on a journey as well, having grown up 30 years in the ‘established church’ painfully aware of the rot within and seeking to live my life as an appropriate Christ-centred, people-loving response to all of it (failing miserable as perhaps this dialogue is revealing and yet learning to pushing ahead in grace).
All I am personally disturbed about is how ‘boldly you speak out’ against the manners of others, when throughout the entire podcast, it seemed like you were dealing out to them exactly the same thing.
That’s me and my very emotional response to your emotional response to the emotional comments made on your blog. And I might be completely out of line for descrating your blog with my ugly comments and for that i am complete dependent on your patience and generosity.
Objectively, I wanted to engage you on exactly the point you responded to above- that is, the authority of the Christian Faith and our understanding (and articulation) of Christian Truth.
Thanks for clearing that up- I think you DID sum up nicely your position on Scripture and that is primarily what I was trying to engage with in my last comment. If we define Truth from Scripture in the manner with which you define it, how then can we stand against the relativity and Godlessness of our Age? (I ask this not in an accusatory tone of your position, but a rhetorical question designed to draw out the tensions of Christian belief)
Allow me to use your last paragraph as a case in point to illustrate what I see as a theological position that countless Christians I’ve met have taken up and what appears to me as the spirit of the age… “my innate sense of right and wrong is the conviction of the Holy Spirit, which sometimes, but not always uses the Bible.”
Without accusing you personally (after all i AM taking this statement out of context for the purpose of illustrating my concerns) and presuming that as a matter of personal faith you DO hold Scripture as completely authoritative in your life; Christians who speak in this manner become for themselves the ‘last word’ on Scripture. As I said in my last post, they stand over Scripture rather than allow Scripture to stand over them. If one says “no, but I’m guided by the Holy Spirit”… How do we then differentiate the Holy Spirit and the Sin-marred Fallen Soul?
Doesn’t the author of Hebrews tell us that it’s the Word of God?
I think Karl Barth’s take on this is helpful… and I speak as a full-fledged, Spirit-filled, tongues-speaking, spiritual-gift active Pentecostal, that one cannot separate the Word and the Holy Spirit. The are BOTH different sides of the one coin and do NOT exist outside the other- the Spirit illumines the Word and the Word reveals the purposes, designs and objective Truth of God through Jesus.
The Jesus that we know, is the Jesus of the Word (not just the personal presence we feel in our hearts), presented to us through the testimony the very infallible Apostles and Prophets (OT/NT) inspired by the Holy Spirit, whose Testaments form the foundations of the Church- with Christ as the cornerstone and in whom the Spirit dwells (Eph 2:19-22)
Yes I might as you point out, run dangerously close to treating the scripture as God, but then again, the other extreme we have to caution against is the possibility of making people who are created in the image of God, God (or in word words, allowing man to define reality and truth and in so doing be god).
I concede your point that we don’t need to bash one another to get Truth established. And that there ARE Christians who are so caught up in trying to get their Bible right, they’ve forgotten that the Laws were given for people, not people for the Law. But that’s doesn’t mean we need to start creating fissures within Scripture and rail against making propositional Truth statements derived from Scripture and sticking by them. Just because it’s difficult for people of this day and age to comprehend a God who judges evil and wickedness doesn’t mean we have to stop proclaiming its Truth.
Forgive me if I have allowed personal prejudices of your possibly imagined hyprocrisy hijack the objectivity of this conversation.
There are theological tensions highlighted by the conversation between the ‘established’ church and the ‘emerging’ church that need to be articulated. I believe those tensions need to exist to keep this entire journey in Christ a wonder and mystery and to keep us feeling aliens and strangers in this world.
To the extent that this dialogue contributes to that, to God be the glory… anything falling short of this, allow me to lean on your Christian charity.
Terence
March 24th, 2006
Terence -
“your podcast left me completely baffled at the glaring hyprocrisy of your manner.”
Nowhere do I say “Don’t criticize.” The “manner” is precisely the point. I try my best to not treat those I oppose as satanic, “mutant spawn” or some other derogatory term like those used to describe me and others in the emerging church. I fail to see how the content of my podcast was hypocritical. I have never said you should not criticize. If the “establishment” has problems with my critique, fine. They want to critique back, fine. I’m just saying you don’t have to be mean and nasty to do that. So how is it hypocritical to say they are wrong, but to do it in a way that is not being mean? I think there is an enormous qualitative difference between saying someone is being nasty and mean and calling them satanic. You seem to suggest I’ve called them names and used other tactics I have not used. Have I ever lost my temper about establishment people? Yes. The difference is, I acknowledge my temper as sinful when I let it slip, call it sin, and seek forgiveness. That is a totally different bag than claiming venemous statements against fellow Christians are some sort of righteous anger and are justified.
The answer to “godlessness” and “relativism” does not rest in a concept of objective truth which makes our intellects infallible (it is the ONLY possible result of saying we understand “objectively”). Christians fight the wrong battle (and quite possibly on the wrong side) when they try to fight for the modern concept of objectivity in perceiving reality.
I would suggest you look at Hebrews 4:12 in context. The following two verses especially make it very clear that the author of Hebrews is using the “Word” in the same way John did at the beginning of the Gospel of John. The “Word” in that context is Jesus and not the written Scriptures.
Although it’s been awhile since I read much of Karl Barth’s writing, my recollection is that he used the “Word” in the same way, and any understanding of Barth that equates the Scriptures with the Holy Spirit and/or Jesus would be far from Barth’s intent. But, of course, I admit it has been a long time since I’ve studied Barth so perhaps my memory fails me.
Alan
March 24th, 2006
Alan,
again, appreciate your response. Thanks for clearing things up. At the moment, I’m content to let our words speak for itself.
Although i will make a last point about Hebrews 4:12 and its context.
In your reference to v.13-14 (”following 2 verses”), the author does wrap up the preceding argument with a strong case to trust in Jesus.
However, from 3:7- 4:11, the author of Hebrews highlights Scripture from various parts of the Tanakh (Psalms, Genesis) and brings fresh interpretation through his apostolic authority… in other words, he was clearly quoting scripture… In addition, since chapter 2, he’s been referencing the gospel message and the word given to us through Jesus Christ (handed down by faithful men). If we ARE to read v.12 in its context, it ‘Word’ refers immediately to scripture (the verbal/ written word)
Moreover, unless the author thinks Jesus (Word incarnate) is an “it”… (v.12- “IT penetrates…”, “IT judges…”)
its more likely that he was referring to the gospel message given to us about Jesus (verbal and/or written, after all this IS pretty late in the 1st Century and quite possibly 2nd Generation Christians, Hebs 2:3), through the apostles and their epistles (ie, Scripture) than Jesus incarnate (of course, it may be conceded that theologically that might be the case, but proper exegesis demands a different conclusion).
Also, I’m not so sure connecting John’s epistle for a better interpretation of Hebrews 4:12 is good exegetical practise (we’re talking about completely different authors, objectives and reference points)…
In any case, in the fourth gospel, the author was CLEARLY talking about the person of Jesus, with the “he” pronoun employed throughout (v.2-4) and the rousing conclusion to a powerful opening statement about the divine origins of Jesus.
Just my 2 cents in attempt to preserve the trustworthiness of Scripture (as is) that’s been our heritage, since the days of Jesus & the Apostles.
thanks again for keeping the dialogue alive. have a great weekend!
ps. in the last post, i meant “the very fallible apostles and prophets” (not “infallible” as printed). sorry!
Terence
March 25th, 2006
Terence -
I think you should check which translation you are using. The NIV takes a phrase by phrase translation approach rather than a word by word approach, which often leads to things like pronouns appearing where there were none. The NAS, which I use most often, only translates passages phrase by phrase when a word for word translation actually causes a different meaning than it would have in the original language.
So, in the NAS, the KJV, NKJV, and other translations of similar method, the pronouns rightly do not appear.
Here’s the NAS:
12For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
13And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
14Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
So in order to understand this passage as the Bible and not Jesus, we would have to ignore the pronouns in verse 13 as not applying to the verse preceding, which I find that a difficult interpretation at best, and we also have to ascribe traits to the Scripture which written words do not have (judging the thoughts and intentions of the heart).
In addition, the preceding chapters in Hebrews are predominantly about Jesus, and the book opens with this:
1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,
2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
This opening and the following chapters display Jesus as the better Word than what was previously handed down. I feel the context, both preceding and following 4:12, yields a fairly clear interpretation that Jesus is the Word of God spoken of in that verse.
I used John not to bolster the point, but merely to say the author was using it in the same way. I still believe the author of Hebrews uses the “Word of God” in 4:12 as Jesus, in the same manner as John.
You, too, have a great weekend.
I want to note that our interaction is kind of what I was talking about in this podcast. We disagree, but we do not get nasty. You oppose my interpretation, but I don’t call you names and throw out slurs against you because of it. This is why I do not think my podcast was hypocritical. I genuinely was making an impassioned plea to critique one another in a manner worthy of followers of Jesus. I do not believe name calling and attacking fits that bill, and I do not believe it is name calling and attacking to point out when persons are using their words to tear down others.
Alan
March 25th, 2006