Alright, I'll be honest. This word can be a bit scary to me. Right now I'm working on my first talk for Alpha and the topic is Christianity: Boring, Untrue, and Irrelevant? so I get to talk about why there are perceptions that Christianity is boring, untrue, and irrelevant (and it's surprisingly easy) and then I get to flip it and talk about why Christianity is actually exciting, true, and relevant. The first and last point are easy for me. After all, with The Source this past year I've been working hard to break these perceptions by using unique types of worship and preaching and music and such. However, the "true" part is another matter altogether.
One thing I've learned about my generation, those right between Gen X and Gen Y (and including both) is that we tend to live in a much more pluralistic world where multiple truths are accepted and declaring one, overarching, and ultimate truth is looked down upon. I mean, how can you really point something as true when we all have our different views of what truth is. What I see and experience as truth in my life might be completely different than yours. I'm reminded of Star Wars, where Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke he didn't lie about his father, he still told the truth, from a different point of view. It seems like that point, as ridiculous as it may have sounded back then, more appealing and used more often.
We all experience different truths in our lives. So, how does Christianity, how does God, how does Jesus speak to all of our different experiences of truth? And how in the world can I speak to that in this class as I look to tell people that Christianity is the truth? After all, Jesus declaring "I am the way, the truth, and the life" isn't exactly the most friendly, inclusive quote there is.
And the funny thing is that I do think Christianity is true and that Jesus is the truth which means this shouldn't be this hard. It just means that it's tricky. Truth is a loaded word and I don't want to use it lightly. So, what is truth? Why is Jesus the truth? Why is Christianity true? Ultimately we need to decide for ourselves what we believe is true. I can tell you what I think is true and you have the make the decision yourself, knowing that my notion of truth might be different from yours. My way of experiencing what is true is different than your experience.
Alright, that's enough rambling. Back to writing the lesson plan. If you have any insight, please let me know!
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Figuring what this whole pastor gig is all about at my first call as associate pastor of congregational life while trying to have a social life, free time, and keep my sanity.
1 comment:
I don't have terribly concrete answers to the theological question at hand, but I'll try. My apologies for going on for so long, but I suspect that an utterly clear and concise would contradict the complex basis for the question.
The place where I begin is that Truth is a person. When Jesus says that He is the Way, the Truth, the Life, it is indeed as exclusive a claim as one can get. However, if we are to uphold the commandment to love God above all else as the greatest commandment, we can't deal with Jesus without a measure of exclusivity.
However, it is the kind of exclusivity that we are dealing with that changes when Truth is thought of as a person rather than an idea. Plato taught that the really true things existed in the realm of ideas - objective and cognitive. Thus, one is right only if one is thinking the right thought - something awfully tricky to do, as is testified by the diversity within the Christian tradition today, and across history, since we can never really agree with one another. Our theological assertions, important though they are, can never finally agree with one another.
However, to say that Truth is a person changes things entirely. One is not in right relationship with the Truth by cognitive understanding because Truth is not a thought. One is only able to be in right relationship with Truth through relationship, because Truth is a person. And the dynamics of the personal are completely different from the dynamics of the cognitive. I would submit that it has been the dynamics of the personal in the face of cognitive inadequacies that gave birth to postmodernity. This opens a way to look at the cognitive pluralism we experience all the time today. Parsing through what that means... well I've gone on far too long already, and I know you'd excel at working with that better than I would.
Everything Christ says is true without a doubt, but we can never confuse what is true from Truth Himself, from whom it is derived. And one does not need to believe that Christ is Truth Himself to believe true things, any more than one needs to be Christian or Jew to believe that murder is wrong.
Why is Christianity true? Because we testify exclusively and unapologetically to the One who is Himself Truth. Such a view of Christianity gives us the asset of being fundamentally about living in relationship with one another, creating community whose character is defined by the forgiveness, grace, and mercy we each were shown by the Crucified One who brought us together. To me, that vision is "exciting, true, and relevant."
So... how's it look? Useful? I'm working on this thought myself, so conversation about it would do me good.
Blessings!
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