The Problem with Truth

There are at least two problems with truth for those who despise, disdain, and reject it and one problem with truth for those who love, receive, and proclaim it: for those who despise, disdain, and reject truth, it is too clear and too convicting. For those who love, receive, and proclaim truth, it is costly. "But when they heard this, they were cut to the quick and intended to kill them" (Acts 5:33).

"When they heard this"; there was no ambiguity or uncertainty about what the apostles were saying. The Council heard and understood. The problem with truth is its clarity. Jesus said, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed” (John 3:19-20).

Truth is clear – too clear. People do not reject truth for intellectual reasons but for moral reasons. Truth reveals and condemns sin. Therefore, “everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”

This is why men would rather have ambiguity, mystery, and uncertainty - all attempts to overcome the clarity of the light that shines from truth - so that they will not be seen as either anti-intellectual or immoral.

"They were cut to the quick"; the Council was exposed by the light of the truth and it was very painful to them. Men are not cut to the quick through ambiguous, mysterious, and uncertain concealings but by clear and convicting revealings. Light (truth) reveals and darkness (falsehood) conceals, therefore only truth can convict.

Rather than plainly preaching God’s Word in a way that unleashes the power and truth of it, many of today’s church leaders try to “package” the message to make it subtler and more appealing to the world in order to remove its offense – its conviction. The most compelling question on the lips of these many false prophets who have gone out into the world and speak as from the world is not “What’s true?” but rather “What works?” Evangelicals these days care less about theology than they do about methodology. Truth has been replaced by pragmatism and earnestly contending for the faith once for all handed down to the saints has been replaced by earnestly contending for cultural relevance. That is why pagans and unbelievers and servants of the devil can sit through church services these days without ever being cut to the quick. They are never under the conviction of the truth because the truth has fallen in the streets.

"And intended to kill them" - the Council heard and understood what the apostles were preaching because truth is clear and they also were cut to the quick because truth is convicting. Since the truth was clear and convicting and the Council did not want to come to the light unless their deeds were exposed, they were going to attempt to overcome the light by extinguishing its primary source at the moment - they intended to kill the apostles. Truth causes problems for those who love, receive, and proclaim it - they are persecuted for the sake of righteousness/truth.

Truth is clear, truth is convicting, and truth is costly.

A Portrait of Emerging/Emergent Postmoderns

The Emerging Church is embracing the postmodern culture and its way of thinking. What marks the postmodern culture is its tendency to dismiss the possibility of any sure and settled knowledge of the truth. In other words it is the rejection of every expression of certainty. According to the postmodern mindset, truth is relative and subjective but not fixed and objective. Therefore one can never speak with certainty and clarity and conviction.

Emerging/Emergent, postmoderns have a special disaffection for clarity, for truth, for certainty. Postmoderns especially despise clarity when it comes to an accurate and true portrait of what they are like. They attempt to eschew their disdain for truth and clarity through several clever disguises.

First they exalt agnosticism as though it is a godly virtue - mystery, ambiguity, and uncertainty as forms of piety. This indeed is a clever disguise because then the truth that God has revealed can be treated as though it has been concealed. But - "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us" (Deuteronomy 29:29). Then as soon as a Christian deals in truth or certainty, speaking a clear, "Thus says the Lord," he or she is caricatured as immodest, arrogant, Pope-ish, omniscient, excathedra speaking, pontificators of doctrinaire arrogance. Why? Because of the postmodern's hatred for absolute truth.

Phil Johnson of PyroManiacs said, "Like all good postmodernists, Emergent Christians hate clarity and precision. They despise authority, and they detest certainty. They say they don’t want answers; they want mystery. They don’t want to be preached to; they want a conversation. They don’t want to have to judge whether something is orthodox or heretical, true or false; they want to create their own spiritual reality, and they want to be affirmed while they do it. Unfortunately, the evangelical movement has plenty of people who are willing to affirm all of those things." (Source)

Another clever disguise used by postmoderns to appear that they don't really hate truth is their never ending trumpeting of thier diversity. This is in order to attempt to make an accurate portrait of the movement appear to be just a caricature and therefore critique-resistant. As Dan Philips said in one post comment box, "Try to nail down one blop of EC Jello, and another blop says "I'm not that way!" (Source)

So as soon as you describe an accurate portrait of what postmoderns are like - haters of truth, clarity, certainty, and despisers of authority, one will come along and say, "I love absolute truth and we're not all that way. It's unfair for you to lump us all together that way." However, keep engaging him or her in conversation and you will sure enough discover that they fit the portrait and still want to call it a caricature.

A caricature is a picture or description ludicrously exaggerating the peculiarities or defects of a person or thing (Websters Universal College Dictionary). It is an untrue, ridiculous, and absurd characterization. A portrait does not involve ludicrous exaggerations but is an actual and true portrayal or depiction of a person or thing.

Beware of the caricatures painted by postmoderns and study closely the portrait of apostates as revealed in God's Word.

Edit: John Piper has an excellent post today concerning mystery. Check it out here