UPDATE (11/05/2009): [I do want to make clear that I have not read the book yet and so I am not authoritative as a source of all that is contained within the book, nor would I presume to be anyway. My interest has definitely been peaked though and I will be reading it shortly. Looks like a great read and will give quite a bit of insight into this perspective I believe. I agree with and trust Mohler's analysis on a host of other things (including that of the emerging/emergent church, since I as well believe it to be a repeat of the same errors from 100 to 200 years ago) and I wholeheartedly agree with his contentions with the ideas presented in this book, since I agree with his analysis of postmodernism in this review and elsewhere.]

Once again, as the case has been time and again, I agree with many of the critiques and assessments of the emerging/emergent movement concerning where modern American, Western Christianity has fallen short. The Reformed faith shares many of the those same concerns. But, once again, as the case has been time and again, I disagree with the conclusions and solutions to those problems offered by emergents. Albert Mohler’s review of John R. Franke’s new book, Manifold Witness, captures those concerns quite eloquently.

Mohler agrees with Franke where there is agreement, but offers differing points of view on many of Franke’s key arguments asserted in his book. The theological arguments put forward by Franke are concisely and forcefully written, which presents an even greater challenge to those of us who hold to historic evangelicalism: more people will read this and be convinced of the “plurality of truth” assumed to be inherent within Christianty, which will open the floodgates for a dead, theological, postmodern liberalism to creep into more evangelical churches. (To be clear, theological liberalism is not equal to modern political liberalism, they are two separate categories.)

It is one thing when theologically illiterate pastors offer up their thoughts in the church’s discourse on these matters (thought certainly some have been quite influential despite that). Yet it is quite another when very learned, smart and knowledgeable theologians offer their ideas up. But it is an even greater challenge then especially when they do so in a way that lay people can understand. John R. Franke is exactly one of those people and Manifold Witness is precisely one of those works that offers such a challenge. Eventually those ideas trickle down from theologians to pastors and then to lay people. And it is for these reasons that Mohler confronts this head-on. It really does present a challenge to historic Protestant evangelicalism now and in the future.

Keep in mind, this is about debating ideas, not going after people, per se. I’m sure John Franke is a great guy. Arguments and words have consequences though. To sit idly by while ideas inherently hostile to Christianity slip in amongst us without a word of critique or disagreement is to (frankly, no pun intended) be unfaithful to Christ and His church and to go against conscience.

(It is sad I even have to say that. Maybe this has to do with the fact that most, having assumed and accepted postmodern views on tolerance, are now unable to distinguish between debating ideas (called public discourse) and attacking people? This was certainly the case with comments made on my reviews of The Shack. Good grief. It seems most believe these to be one in the same category and therefore we’re being “judgmental” in disagreeing with ideas argued so as to be accepted by the majority. For such people, this is true “for them, “at least in our postmodern context with an idea of tolerance that is really no tolerance at all, since the idea of tolerance assumes disagreement and a belief that others are entitled to disagree. But I digress.)

This is a great review of the book by Albert Mohler. Highly recommend it.

It seems the “glory” and mystique of President Obama is all quickly fading. Not for all, but certainly for many. Those intellectual elites who voted for him are finally beginning to have gotten over the great historical and emotional nature of such an amazing election win. Now to the issues. Liberal commentators, even those at Salon.com and (oddly enough) MSNBC (at least in this one video), are beginning to actually start looking at issues through an intellectual grid instead of blinding emotional infatuation. Of course, with the exception of the Brian Williams of the countryside.

Camille Paglia has written a piece on Salon.com that makes some great points concerning Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo last week. She goes after several other points as well. But what really caught my attention was that her analysis of his assumptions of the three major religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) couldn’t have been better stated by many conservatives. She has a way with words. I want to quote the best parts and let you read the rest. Great article.

“It was also puzzling how a major statement about religion could seem so detached from religion. Obama projected himself as a floating spectator of other people’s beliefs (as in his memory of hearing the call to prayer in Indonesia). Though he identified himself as a Christian, there was no sign that it goes very deep. Christianity seemed like a badge or school scarf, a testament of affiliation without spiritual convictions or constraints. This was one reason, perhaps, for the odd failure of the speech to acknowledge the common Middle Eastern roots of Judeo-Christianity and Islam, for both of whom the holy city of Jerusalem remains a hotly contested symbol.

Obama’s lack of fervor may be one reason he rejects and perhaps cannot comprehend the religious passions that perennially erupt around the globe and that will never be waved away by mere words. By approaching religion with the cool, neutral voice of the American professional elite, Obama was sometimes simplistic and even inadvertently condescending, as in his gift bag of educational perks like ‘scholarships,’ ‘internships,’ and ‘online learning’ — as if any of these could checkmate the seething, hallucinatory obsessions of jihadism.”

And it doesn’t stop there:

“The Cairo speech will certainly not be Obama’s final word on this important subject, which I hope will remain on the front burner throughout his presidency. But before he can sway hearts and minds, the president will need to show that he understands the ultimate divergence and perhaps incompatibility of major creeds. At the finale, his recitation of soft-focus quotes from the Koran, Talmud and Bible came perilously close to a fuzzy New Age syncretism of ‘all religions are the same’ — which they unequivocally are not. The problem facing international security is that people who believe something will always be stronger and more committed than people who believe nothing — which unfortunately describes the complacent passivity of most Western intellectuals these days.”

Ahh, pure intellectual integrity. Haha, Paul bashing? (Paul Young of course) Right. You decide. Instead of working through the difficulty of beliefs (or rather denials) that can lead people to hell when accepted, it seems some are content to just shut you out of the conversation altogether instead of seriously and honestly engaging any kind of debate because of what the book has done for them, at least emotionally speaking. Since when did the individual become the standard-bearer and authority on what’s truth or not? They just don’t want to talk about any criticism of it, even if it’s a legitimately serious issue concerned with none other than the very Gospel itself by which one is saved.

I believe this quote above so very much captures the heart of what I don’t like about what this book is doing to so many. It is a tear-jerker of a story and I’ll be honest, I’m an emotional guy and reading through the guy losing his daughter in such a brutal manner with little closure in the story made me weep, especially in light of being a parent now. I do not negate what the story does for one’s emotions and how it is a rather enthralling, fictional tale (though I really don’t like reading fiction most of the time anyway).

But as emotional of a story it may be, that is no reason to excuse serious calls to check a writers’ Gospel doctrine as to what he is positing as truth, truth he was originally communicating to none other than his own children whom I’m sure he loves more than anything in the world. And if he is teaching them serious error and potentially leading them astray with false truth, what about the rest of those who have been so spellbound by this narrative?

As a side note, notice how this person I’m quoting holds up positivity as if it is some cardinal doctrine that if violated by anyone, especially in relation to The Shack, you are completely ignored and shut out of conversation. The other cardinal doctrine is this persons’ experience. It is supreme. If it goes against the persons’ experience, then the argument has no right to intrude and critique. So goes postmodern theology and dogma.

And this all just gets back to my point again from an earlier post, that when people say the book is just fiction, I have to stop them and ask them, is it really fictional or Young’s portrayal of what he believes to be absolutely true concerning God within a fictional narrative? The reason I ask is because it seems many are accepting Young’s underlying assumptions and presuppositions about God and how He works as truth itself. Does God need to forgive our sins? Has God clearly revealed Himself sufficiently in His own Word, or do we need to give some other, extra-Biblical portrayal to make Him more “palatable” to the sinner? These are questions Young answers in the book overtly and subtly.

As many arguments as I could make to such an individual with Scripture and reason, it is clear they just won’t even listen because they’ve decided that what is said in the book is divine, authoritative truth for them. Oh the bankruptcy of relativism. It is an impoverished system of thought to say the least that is gutting our culture morally, spiritually and emotionally. It is now entering the church at an alarming rate and it is books like this that are opening the door.

I love Will Smith. I think he’s such an awesome actor. But we part ways on issues concerning Jesus. We do not worship or speak of the same Jesus together. Al Mohler pointed this article out on his radio program the other day.

Of particular interest, Will Smith says,

“I love the nature of humanity’s search for meaning. For me I’m certain about my relationship with the model of perfection of human life that’s laid out with the life of Jesus Christ. I’m certain of that. So I’m at home and not fearful when I sit in a mosque or a synagogue or a Buddhist temple, the same way that I’m home in the Church of Scientology. I like anywhere people are searching for the truth, and I respect their path and I’m intrigued by their path. I think when you are certain in and of what you believe in, you can open your mind to seeing the ways of others. I’m not bothered when someone says “Allah” because they’re talking about God—we are talking about the same person. I was in India recently and my hotel was near the Taj Mahal. Five times a day there would be a call for prayer, and it was the most beautiful thing. I was lying in my bed thinking, no matter what your religion is, it would be great to have that reminder five times a day to remember your Lord and savior.”

Can you point out the presuppositions to his religious worldview? Emphatic doctrines he speaks? Here are a few.

“For me I’m certain about my relationship with the model of perfection of human life that’s laid out with the life of Jesus Christ.”

- For Smith, Jesus is primarily an example, maybe even one of the best moral teachers ever, and surely a supreme model to follow. But He is not The one and only Savior of any who would believe in Him, as Jesus said of Himself.

“I’m not bothered when someone says ‘Allah’ because they’re talking about God—we are talking about the same person.”

- Try telling that to zealous Muslims (or Christians for that matter :]). He assumes everyone is ultimately worshiping the same God. “All roads lead to Rome.” This is a predominant presupposition in our culture. True Christians believe if someone does not worship God via Jesus Christ alone through the Gospel He has proclaimed, they are worshiping an idol, a false God. Jesus even said of the unbelieving Jews that they were followers of their “father, the devil.” Is this any less true of those non-Jews who reject the one and only Messiah, and spurn Him and His salvation?

“I like anywhere people are searching for the truth, and I respect their path and I’m intrigued by their path.”

- Smith reduces truth down to a subjective taste preference, not an absolute objective reality outside of ourselves. And this based on his presupposition above that we all worship the same God.

On the contrary, Jesus says of Himself, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – John 14:6

In Acts, Peter says to the Jewish council, “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” – Acts 4:11-12

It seems Smith has grossly misunderstood what the Scriptures have said. May we pray for his conversion.

In postmodern religious thinking, it’s all about the search itself, the look for spirituality, not about ever arriving at any solid knowledge of the truth. This thinking defies Scripture itself. In fact, a few verses speak of this kind of thinking and the people who adopt it:

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, HAVING THE APPEARANCE OF GODLINESS, BUT DENYING ITS POWER. AVOID SUCH PEOPLE. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, ALWAYS LEARNING AND NEVER ABLE TO ARRIVE AT A KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH.” – 2 Timothy 3:1-7

Not all of these are necessarily prescriptive of postmodern people, but surely much of it does speak particularly of those who have “the appearance of godliness, but [deny] its power,” and who are, “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” Paul was speaking in a particular context, but at the heart of all those sins is unbelief. Unbelievers can do many “good” things in the eyes of other men. But if they are not done with a heart that is giving glory to God via Jesus, the acts themselves are sin in God’s eyes, the only eyes who matter ultimately. The only thing can result from such people is sin, because whatever is not from faith is sin (Romans 14:23). And it may not be that the sin is as visible as the one’s spoken in these verses, but at the heart of all of it is unbelief and that is what matters to God.

Can Will Smith’s “Gospel” really be called good news, the very meaning of the word, Gospel? I think not, because it simply amounts to do-gooderism and moralism, which leads to self-righteousness or despair. Avoid such thinking as well as such people who teach in such a manner. By God’s Spirit coupled with the Scriptures, God’s Word to us, you can come to a true and solid knowledge of the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the one and only Savior who can save you from the wrath of God to come. That is what the Scriptures have been given to us for, to convey to us the good news, absolute truth.

Postmodernism is simply a bankrupt system of thinking and living. And Will Smith’s gospel is no true Gospel but simply another burden put forward by sinful man that keeps him in bondage to sin and decay. We need Christ, the Jesus of the Bible, to save us from the inside out. Only He can accomplish such a thing, not man’s inherent goodness and moral power, for we have none.

So Apple, in response to the environmentalist outcry over the past few years, that their products are harmful to the environment (which I am for reducing toxins I might add), stepped up their efforts to make good on reducing the amount of damage they cause in towns like China where they are produced, as well as issues such as the cancer-causing toxic fumes reported to be burning off of the motherboards. So, as this article says, with one hand, environmentalists are patting Apple on the head and saying, “Good job,” while apparently the other hand is still chastising them for not doing enough. What is enough for an environmentalist, I ask?

This leads me to one fundamental conclusion: as long as humans are alive and consume anything, anything at all, whether it is food such as plants, animals, or if we use wood for building houses to live in, or use cars for transportation, fuels for energy, environmentalists will complain and fight all forms of technology that advance society. Now that doesn’t mean we have no responsibility to take care of the Earth as Christians. But it does mean that it should not become our god as it has for the environmentalist movement who opposes the God of the Bible (for the most part, with exceptions of course).

This leads me to more thought at a worldview level of where we as Christians are coming from and where our environmentalist friends are coming from. Are humans more valuable than anything else on the face of the planet as the Scriptures say, or are they of the same worth, value and honor as everything else that exists, which makes us just common place amongst a host of other organisms and matter? For instance, does a plant, as has been dictated in Switzerland by their governmental ethics board, have just as many inherent “rights” as humans and as much God-given value and honor? Or are humans distinct in honor and value apart from all other things in creation as has been ordained by our Creator?

Now my presupposition with all of this is that God is the Creator of all things and created all for His glory. In addition, I believe people were created in the image of God, to reflect His glory and attributes. The evolutionist/environmentalist does not believe any of this and so just as belief in the God of the Bible guides all my other beliefs and decisions, so also their underlying beliefs about reality (based largely outside of any text or manuscript, but based in very large assumptions that have been widely accepted by the scientific community) guide all of their other decisions regarding the world and our role as humans in it. These beliefs naturally and logically lead them to conclude we have no more inherent worth than that of a rock.

The Christian worldview says humans were created by God as His crowning achievement, made in His image and possess more inherent worth than any other of His creations. The evolutionist/environmentalist worldview (though not all environmentalists I might add) explain humans away as just a series of chemical and biological reactions that just happened to come into existence by chance, survival of the fittest or natural selection. Therefore, what worth do we have as humans that is more than that of other creatures, they seem to ask on an almost constant basis, at least implicitly?

This exposes the fundamentally different ways of viewing humanity and our use of the environment. Both camps believe (or should at least) that we should care for and protect the environment. Yet the reason why we should do this is what splits us. The Christian worldview says that we should take care of the environment out of our glory to God and thankfulness for what He has granted us to live in. The environmentalist (who for the most part holds to a evolutionist worldview) is merely a survivalist, believing humans to possess no more worth than that of a rock or plant and then applying the same worth and value we possess as humans, as granted to us by our Creator, to that of other objects with which we come into contact.

At what point will environmentalists cease their varied agendas? In their worldview, until humans are using no resources or are using only the most limited amounts possible to the point where there is no progress made at any level in our civilization, will their endeavors be complete. So should environmentalist policies and legislation be imposed on the collective society so that everyone must abide by their assumed rules? Is this not the very thing the same kinds of people accuse Christians of doing, imposing moral laws on the collective society? Do they not believe their proposed laws to be rules that are morally correct for all people and that we all should abide by them?

As Greg Koukl insightfully points out in his lecture on Relativism, and this whole discussion proves as a case in point, when you really get down to it, morality is the only thing you can legislate. This is clear between both the Christian and environmentalist worldviews. Now I don’t believe you can bring people to salvation through legislation (what many on the Christian right seem to assume), all the while ignoring the actual changing of people’s hearts by the Holy Spirit.

But the question is, which one of the meta-narratives for our existence is true? The Christian worldview that values humans above all in creation? Or an atheistic, evolutionist, radical-environmental worldview which believes humans to be of equal worth and dignity as anything else that exists, like plants now? I would argue it takes way more faith to believe we got here from nothing than to believe God was always there, self-existent, creating us and all things out of nothing by His infinite power. The latter at least logically makes more sense for how we got here and what our point of existence is: to find our ultimate joy and fulfillment in giving glory to God through Jesus, not in trying to save a world marred by the fall, though of course we sinners can make it worse off a lot faster if we’re not careful by how we use resources.

Post-modernity has infiltrated every facet of the West, and it seems people are slowly discovering it’s a dead-end philosophy. However, many within the academic community seem to still be holding on to this thought (not sure why, they’re supposed to be the smart ones). So, taking some of the apologetic arguments from one of my favorite books, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air, by Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl, I was successfully able to take down this system which is what a majority of the theory behind ethics in our day comes from.

The foundation for much of our ethical theory these days is based within relativism, and if the foundation is faulty, the whole structure crumbles. This led me to point out that the only system that works is the one God has designed, through Christ. This is truth, Jesus is truth, all other systems are faulty. Ethics must be based in who God is; righteous, holy, loving, perfect, just, patient.

But if ethics is based on a system that states all truth is relative and the definition of ethical standards depends on the cultural context, then there is no absolute moral truth. Unfortunately, not everyone in our culture holds to the biblical view, and therefore, there still remains a problem of what exactly is absolute truth as it pertains to ethics and morals.

Well, Jesus stated Himself, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me.” He also claimed to be God stating, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Based upon the Old Testament where God told Moses in Exodus 3, “Tell them I AM has sent you,” Jesus was not only making Himself equal with God, He was claiming to be God. So either He was a liar and insane, or He is the God of glory.

He will not simply let you state He was a good teacher, His claims do not allow for this (just read the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). He wasn’t just another good teacher or prophet in the same line as Mohammed, Buddha, etc, He claimed to be God Himself! No other religious figure in the past has claimed such a thing (with the exception of few cult leaders).

So the point is, Jesus is Lord, He is King, He is Messiah, He is God over all things, through which the world was created, through which men have been bought by His blood. He is excellent, holy, and wonderful, and nothing compares with Him. He is absolute truth and He defines reality. All other realities are relative to Him and He will not allow for any other god, because He is God!

Therefore, if He is truth and defines reality, should we not be basing our ethical standards upon this reality? Well, not everyone believes in Christ so this will never fly in terms of implementing this into our culture (unless God so permits), but we must strive to glorify God as believer’s by presenting Christ in this manner, because there are only two things people can believe about Christ, either He was telling the truth and is God, or He was a liar and crazy. And we who believe know in our hearts that He is who He said He was, mainly because He regenerated our hearts to even perceive this to be so and to know it as the truth.

So as believer’s, our ethical standards must be based in Christ Himself, who He is, what He’s done. The only thing this class has done for me is 1) given me a proving ground to thwart relativism and improve my apologetic argumentation for Christ, and 2) strengthen my convictions that relativistic theory is bogus and will never work, but also to point people to the cross where our Savior hung and died, and to His grave where He rose from the dead.