Truth & The New Kind of Christian, Ch. 2 and 3

Chapter 2 seeks to get more specific by defining 'Christian Post-modernism'. In doing so, he turns his sites on a number of authors. I was surprised to see Grenz and Franke in his list as we read "Beyond Foundationalism". I was feeling interested, though not yet convinced, by the arguments set forth by them. Smith expresses the danger of adopting such views. What Smith clarified for me (at least I think he did) is that F&G were not just saying 'foundationalism plus language' (as I would assert). I thought we were appropriating objective truths to our language and subjective experience in light of the Spirit's leading (which would make truth mainly personal, but certainly objective).

Chapter 3 turns to the issue of the emerging church. Built upon a need for certainty (and forsaking that possiblity), McLaren abandons orthodox approaches to theology for post-modern. Smith walks us through McLaren's critique of modernity (which has some valid points). What is most distressing for me is McLaren's abandonment of the good of modernity and objectivity. I agree with much of his critique, but I do not feel the need to create an either/or. For example, truth is both subjective and objective, to some extent. If properly understood, we have a subjective experience with objective truths. There are times when our experience is wrong and therefore our views are wrong. But just because we have a subjective experience does not mean we cannot have objective knowledge. Just watch American idol and you will see the difference of three judges on one person's performance, but they are all talking about that one person, not some other person. I was also surprised to see Lesslie Newbigin come up in this chapter. I like his book "Proper Confidence" very much.