Colson Defends His View of the Emerging Church
Charles Colson is once again in Christianity Today on the topic of “knowable truth” and the Emerging Church: Emerging Confusion, Jesus is the truth whether we experience him or not.
Maybe I had been too harsh. After all, the theologian—we’ll call him Jim—argued that emerging church leaders are trying to translate the gospel for a postmodern generation. That’s a commendable goal, I agreed. Though in their effort to reach postmoderns—who question the existence and knowability of truth—I expressed fear that they are coming dangerously close to teaching that objective truth does not exist.
A lengthy e-mail exchange with Jim followed. In defense of emerging church leaders, he insisted that truth is paradoxical, simultaneously personal and propositional. It is objectively true that Jesus Christ is Lord no matter what anyone thinks, Jim wrote. But, he added, “Propositional truth is not the highest truth. Indeed, the highest truth is personal.”
A few years ago I enjoyed a conversation with a group of us artist types (At the re:create think tank in Franklin, TN) and Kurt Bruner who wrote The Divine Drama: Discovering Your Part In God’s Story. Bruner’s statement is that both “propositional” and “story” should be presented when we share the gospel. He has a terrific book that puts the gospel story in the format of a dramatic script.
I do think Colson has a point about having concern for putting “personal” truth before the “propositional” and in the need for apologetics. Indeed, truth is knowable. However, I see it as a faulty position on both sides to put propositional or personal in sequence and would think that Bruner has it right in making it a “both and”.
Is the gospel just propositional, or can it be both story and proposition?
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