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For many folks, I can seem like a walking contradiction.  Socially I’m a liberal, theologically I’m Biblical, doctrinally I am orthodox (strictly Trinitarian by Chalcedonian definition), philosophically I’m post-modern, and religiously I’m evangelical.  To me, however, these are not contradictory positions, they are complementary ones.  Let me take post-modern and evangelical as an example.

Post-modernism is the recognition that there is no such thing as objectivity, that all knowledge and experience is filtered through perception, bias, expectation, language, preconceptions, culture, and the limited capacities of our nervous systems.  As a post-modernist, I say there may be Absolute Truth, but I can never know it absolutely.  I can never know for certain if I correctly identify Absolute Truth; I can never know for certain if I correctly comprehend Absolute Truth; I can never know for certain if I correctly apply Absolute Truth.  I may actually know some Absolute Truth, but I can never be sure.

I wish I could live in the complete certainty of all things important, and, like Nicodemus in the Bible, be comfortable saying to Jesus, “We know.”  But, like Nicodemus, I must live in the realm of uncertainty, and accept what Jesus says in response: “You do not know.”  And this produces an interesting theological observation: Certainty is the friend of Law and of obedience, but certainty is the opposite of faith, for one does not need to trust when one “knows for sure.”  So, one of my most important rules is this, “I could be wrong about anything.”  (This is # 1 in “Tom’s Laws of Honest Inquiry.”  The whole thing goes, “I could be wrong about anything; I’m certainly wrong about something; but I’m not wrong about everything.”)

Post-modernism does not say that I know nothing, however.  It says that all knowledge is relative and subjective.  In other words, the experience of knowing comes from a relationship between the knower and the known – a relationship in which it is impossible to identify which is the knower and which is the known. 

Think of it this way, how do you get to know someone?  You enter into a relationship with that person.  The more intimate the relationship, the greater the depth and quality of your knowledge of that person.  But, you cannot be in such a relationship unless you also come to be known by that other.  In a relationship, you are both knower and known.  And the process of being in that relationship changes you into a person who is different from the person you would have become if you had not entered that relationship.  This observation is why I am an evangelical.

Generally, when someone hears the label Evangelical, they think of a religious person who votes republican, goes to a non-denominational Bible church, takes the Bible literally (whatever that means), is opposed to homosexuality, and has had the experience of being “born again.”  But, that is a cultural definition, not a theological one.  Theologically, an evangelical is someone who believes that we must come into a personal relationship with God by faith.  And that is a pretty good expression of post-modern philosophy.

Instead of holding to some doctrinal certainty in which I am absolutely certain that I know THE TRUTH (even though the other guy claims his is THE TRUTH), I recognize that I live in uncertainty.  And as one who lives in uncertainty, faith is my friend and my only path to knowledge.  And that knowledge comes only as I enter into transforming relationships.  So, if I am to know something of the Ultimate and the Absolute, I must enter into a relationship with the Ultimate and Absolute. 

As a post-modernist I say, I exist only in relationships.  As an evangelical I say, I can exist always in a relationship with God.  As a post-modernist I say, certainty is nothing.  As an evangelical I say, faith is everything.  As a post-modernist I say, I cannot know the Truth.  As an evangelical I say, Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Light.  No contradictions, only the inescapable conclusion that the only way to know God is to be in a relationship with God.  So, I am happy to ask, have you put your faith in Jesus, and entered into a deep and personal relationship with Him by faith?

Pastor Tom