WHERE ISTHE BATTLE?

Francis Schaeffer used to stress Martin Luther’sobservation that unless we are defending the faith at the point where it isbeing attacked in our generation, we are not defending the faith.  He was right.  There is a Scandal of the Cross for each generation and eachpeople, but it changes as the shifting stratagems of the Enemy vary.  For the Greeks it was the resurrection of thebody; for the Jews it was the loss of their status as a privileged peopledefined by their keeping of the Mosaic Law; for the Modernist it was thesupernatural, especially the miraculous; for all men at all times it is our absolutedependence on God’s grace, his unmeritedfavor.  What is the particular stickingpoint for our own time?  A good case canbe made that it is the existence of objective truth, or, more subtly, theability of human beings to knowobjective truth, and hence to be responsible for knowing it and accountable toGod for what they do about it. 

Current pseudo-philosophies reduce all truthclaims to personal perspectives and power plays, and people influenced by themrefuse to participate in any discourse that does not acquiesce in thosereductions.  There is therefore a strongtemptation to think that we have to play by those rules in order to gain ahearing for the Gospel at all.  But ifwe yield to that temptation, are we still proclaiming the Gospel?  If I speak in such a way that I have alreadyadmitted by the form of discourse I adopt that the Gospel is no more than mypersonal perspective on religion, have I not denied the faith, however much I maystill mouth the prescribed formulae about Jesus dying for our sins?  For a Jesus who is lord only of myperspectives is not Lord of the cosmos and is therefore incapable of savinganyone. 

It is good to be humble about our pretensions toknowledge and to admit that, while we know absolute truth, we do not know truthabsolutely.  But in the current climateit is one small step from that admission to becoming intimidated aboutasserting that the truth claims Christ makes on our lives are absolute and comewith God’s absolute authority.  That isultimately the bottom line: is Christ Lord of all whether any of us perceivesor accepts it or not, or is He just one of my opinions?

Are robust truth claims offensive to ourgeneration?  No one can doubt that theyare.  Should the soldiers of Christ thentiptoe away from that breach in our battle lines, or should they flood into itlest the entire phalanx of the Gospel message advancing into our culture besubverted and swept away?  The ancestorsof modern theological liberalism began by downplaying and soft-peddling thesupernatural elements of Christian truth, because they thought modern men couldno longer accept them.  Their intentionswere (at first) good and sincere, but they left their followers with only animpotent shell of the biblical faith. Can we afford to repeat their mistake? 

Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.  His claims on our belief are absolute.  If we flinch at this point; if our trumpetgives an uncertain sound; if we present a Christ who is inoffensive because Heis after all only one perspective among many; if we allow the enemies of truthto dictate the terms of engagement; if in other words we compromise on theissue of truth, then we betray thenext generation to unrelieved darkness. If we do this, then may God have mercy on their souls—and, even more, onours.       

Donald T. Williams is Professor of English and Director of the Schoolof Arts and Sciences at Toccoa Falls College. His most recent books are Mere Humanity: G. K. Chesterton, C. S.Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien on the Human Condition (Broadman, 2006) and Credo:Meditations on the Nicene Creed (Chalice Press, 2007).

Donald T. Williams, PhD
P.   O.   Box   #   800807
Toccoa Falls, GA.  30598

dtw@tfc.edu

http://doulomen.tripod.com