Can Truth Survive In A Postmodern Society?

I have begun reading John MacArthur's new book The Truth War. So far MacArthur has done an eloquent job of laying out God's word and His view on the saddening crisis we see in the church today.

Chapter 1- Can Truth Survive in a Postmodern Society?

"Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." "What is truth?" Pilate asked.'" - John 18:37-38

Pilate rose, as MacArthur notes, an extremely vital question one that society as a whole searches for today...WHAT IS TRUTH? We have a need for truth. And the necessity of absolute truth is right next to that.

What is truth? The Bible teaches that truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God....it is the self expression of God. God is truth! You see truth is the way things are, it is ontological. Not only does God clarify truth throughout scripture (John 17:17, 1 Peter 1:230, but He explains to us that even nature will reveal the truth of Himself...they will in essence declare Him glory (Psalm 19:1, Romans 1:20).

MacArthur goes onto explain that "truth means NOTHING apart from God. Truth cannot be adequately explained, recognized, understood, or defined without God as the source" (4). If you venture to find truth in anything else or by your own means you are destined for a dead-end, for failure (Romans 1:21-22). Philosophers have trued countless times to define truth and knowledge and have found themselves in the unkown and in unbearable confusion, some of which were the well known John Locke or even Plato.

Lately we have seen an ever increased interest in "finding" the truth by not only religions, but by scientists, philosophers, and the human population in general.

Before we talk about postmodernism we must understand modernism first. Modernity was "characterized by the belief that truth exists and that the scientific method is the only reliable way to determine that truth" (9). People such as Darwin and the idea of Darwinism fall into this category. Although modernism was defeated soon after it had taken a hold of much of society, new ways of thinking that can be connected to these originally "modern" ideas have surfaced and are deemed as "postmodernism".

If you have been paying any attention to the world in which we live you have noticed the increased idea of "postmodernism" infiltrating different realms of society from art to religion. Postmodernism "suggest that if objective truth exists, it cannot be known objectively or with any degree of certainity...the subjectivity of the human mind makes knowledge of objective truth impossible" (11).

'Well what are postmodernists' you might ask? "Postmodernists are generally suspicious of rational and logical forms. They especially do not like to discuss truth in plain propositional terms" (13). Do you see a problem with that? If the Bible claims to be the truth in its entirety, anyone who claims to be a postmodernist who follows Christ is really contridicting their own beliefs.

Now we could spend hours upon hours discussing postmodernism, but with the brief intro above (for more info read The Truth War), we can see why this view has become widely accepted and very popular today. It is much like relativism in which your way is great for you and my way is great for me. The sad thing is that these ideas are infiltrating the church!

The Emerging Church movement is a culprit in this new way of faith. The emerging church "has made a self-conscious effort to make Christianity momre suitable to a postmodern culture. Emerging Christians are determined to adapt the Christian faith, the structure of the church, the language of faith, and even the gospel message itself to the ideas and rhetoric of postmodernism" (17). They re-tool messages and modes of communication. In fact many of them even shun the idea that we need to know what is "right".

This is not the first time the war for truth has arisen in the church. It has happened in every generation of church history and battles over the church even were going on in biblical times. It is our duty to pass on the truth to the upcoming generations as MacArthur explains (1 Timothy 6:20-21), "we are under a sacred obligation to join the battle and contend for the faith" (23). Many however willfully deny the fact that this is occuring today...they turn a deaf ear or a blind eye.

We as Christians cannot imitate the world and her postmodern culture in order to reach them. Throughout scripture we are reminded not to conform to this world. As Christians we are ambassadors carrying the good news in a world of darkness (Isaiah 9:2), but we are also soldiers that are in charge of casting out lies and deception that spill forth from the evil forces (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 and 2 Timothy 2:3-4). But we must remember that our battle is not waged on the flesh, in fact it is not of this world. Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that the powers we fight against are much greater!

Jude's epistle was written to Christians, those that were passionate followers of our Lord Jesus Christ, in hopes that they would prayerfully defend the truth, "reaching out to sinners with tryth even as we make every effort to destroy the lies and other evil that hold them in deadly bondage" (26).

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that one point. - Martin Luther (1483-1546)