Unlikely Bed-fellows and Tolerance Today

In an interesting paper D.A. Carson suggests that Science and Christianity are rapidly finding themselves with unlikely bed-fellows... each other! I would like to pluck a handful of interesting insights from the article, in particular relating to the topic of 'tolerance'.

"It used to be that tolerance was the virtue of the person who held strong views about something or other, but who insisted that those who disagreed had an equal right to defend their views – the sort of stance picked up in the slogan, 'I may detest your opinions, but I shall defend to the death your right to speak them.' Today, however, tolerance is the virtue of the person who holds no strong views, except for the strongly held view that it is wrong to hold strong views, or to indicate that someone else might be wrong." - D.A. Carson, 'Maintaining Scientific and Christian Truths in a Postmodern World.'

This is an outrageously insightful observation of postmodernism. The only 'sin' in today's western culture is almost certainly the suggestion that another person is 'wrong'. As Carson supports later in the article;

"In the domain of evangelism, not least university evangelism, the hardest thing to get across these days is the notion of sin. To talk about sin is to say that certain behaviour and attitudes and beliefs are wrong, and that is the one thing postmodernism does not permit us to do. The one heresy postmodernism condemns is the belief that there is heresy; the one immoral act is the articulation of the view that there are immoral acts. But unless people adopt biblical views on sin, transgression, rebellion, trespass, guilt, and shame, it is virtually impossible to articulate faithfully the good news of Jesus Christ. If we cannot agree on what the problem is, we most certainly cannot agree on what the solution is." - D.A. Carson, 'Maintaining Scientific and Christian Truths in a Postmodern World.'

This is one of the primary reasons that I am dedicated to preaching God as both full of wrath and love. If we do not accept what more reformed thinkers would call 'our total depravity' we cannot understand why God should justly destroy us. And without an understanding of our deserved fate we cannot be stuck as deeply by the beauty of the Grace described in the Gospel that we must proclaim as truth.

"Christians who have prematurely declared victory over modernity are in for a cruel disillusionment. . . . It is true that modernism was openly hostile to religion and that postmodernism is much more sympathetic on the surface. But it is naive to ignore the price tag. Postmodern openness allows all religions and beliefs to present and practise their claims. But it demands the relinquishing of any claims to unique, absolute, and transcendent truth. For the Christian the cost is too high." - Os Guinness, 'Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What To Do About It'

It certainly can be exciting for a Christian when they are amazed they are allowed the freedom to 'evangelize' his or her friends and family in this 'postmodern' west. This excitement is often eclipsed by hopelessness as said Christian slowly comes to the realization that their friend listened to everything they said and decided to put it on the shelf alongside all of the other 'truths' they heard that day. We must be at the table. However, we must not drop our claim to THE Truth for the sake of being invited back to a table of 'people [that] will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths' (2 Tim 4:3-4, ESV).

"It is a great help to acknowledge that no truth which human beings may articulate can ever be articulated in a culture -transcending way – but that does not mean that the truth thus articulated does not transcend culture. This point is extraordinarily important, and often overlooked. If we articulate a truth in English, since all language is a cultural artifact our articulation of the the truth is culturally constrained. But that does not mean that the same truth cannot be articulated in another culture, often in another way." - D.A. Carson, 'Maintaining Scientific and Christian Truths in a Postmodern World.'

What a quotation. Does this not demand of today's Church the necessity of a missional mindset? We may have an excellent grasp of THE Truth; but without an understanding of our cultures this Truth lies in the hands of the comfortables, in the words of Christianese, and in the walls of our clinical sanctuaries.

The full article by Carson can be found here