How often do you her this? We think it's a relatively new argument because of the recent increase in volume on morality debates of justice, CV, economics, climate change, marriage, abortion, and on and on. The facts are, this has been going on since the famous deal Adam and Eve made with the serpent.
"for God knows that when you eat of the tree of right and wrong, your eyes will be open and you will be like God with regards to knowing right and wrong."
So, what is central to mankind's inheritance from first man? The desire to be God's agent for truth about right and wrong. "You shall surely die" was God's warning to Adam about taking over God's job to know right and wrong. Adam and Eve didn't physically die, but they died spiritually. They became forever separated from fellowship with God because of their desire .... until God sent Jesus to rescue us of this terrible place Adam and Eve left us in.
In a recent article by Tim Keller, "A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory," he explains how throughout history movements have grabbed power by becoming THE "truth-claimants." Keller goes on to say that when any human claims something is harmful to others or unjust, they are making a claim to judge the truth that determines the rightness of their position and the wrongness of others'. Here's where the power grab occurs. Keller says, "the main way power is exercised is through language. Language does not describe reality, it constructs or creates it. Power structures mask themselves behind the language of rationality and truth."
Now Keller is primarily explaining how cultural movements over time have usurped the Christians' advocacy for a moral and just society. The competition for truth has been at the center of the struggle for power over society for ever. I can agree with Keller's lengthy and in depth treatise on this topic.
Keller is capturing the predominant view of the current Western evangelical Christian Church. Here is where I have a problem with Keller and what is considered "normal language" of the church in our times.
It seems that the Christian language agrees with secular ideas in many ways but is a different, more improved way of being a "truth claimant.," a competing grab for power. It seems to me the demands for God's justice, morality and virtue is different than the secular, but not really. It seems that the claim Christians make to fix the wrong in the world according to God's ideas of right and wrong is giving in to the exact same response Adam and Eve had to the serpent. Seeing man's job as one in which we bring God's Kingdom to earth is the inheritance we have received from first man.
Some people study the Bible to confirm existing deep seated beliefs (core assumptions). I attempt to study the Bible to transform my core assumptions. God only knows if I do. Here's what I found, not as a "truth-claimant", but as a faithful child.
Jesus didn't come to earth to pump up God's people to be better Pharisees. He had His harshest words for them. He didn't come to improve on Aristotle's idea of a happy life through personal and community virtue. He rebuked EVERY tenet of Aristotle's teachings.
Jesus came NOT to judge a world on what is right and what is wrong, but to provide for God's people a pathway back to fellowship with Him. His people are left on this earth for a brief time to point the flawed and dying world to God and His Kingdom. God desires our faith, not our actions (see how Jesus answers the question of His disciples on 'what is the work of God?'). Trusting Him will result in Godly actions, but to a different end than is often professed to Christians by preachers and teachers. The life of a Christian will point to a King and a Kingdom where we are welcomed and blessed. We show the lost world that justice and rights in this world are NOT what defines or fulfills us. As Kingdom dwellers, we are heavenly fortunate (makrios), not earthly happy (eudaemonia). Our goal (telos) in life is God's goal in life, to glorify Him.
What a person believes about Heaven and earth will form and inform every aspect of the person's soul, the center of thought, feelings and choices.
You might be saying by now, or at least thinking this, "aren't you grabbing power by claiming a truth in this blog that competes with claims of others?"
Could be ..... That's for you to ponder ....
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