Where Everybody's Crazy

Well, of last year, really. But it's something that I keep getting drawn back to. Martin and Hazel are doing great stuff in Argentina, and thinking hard too. This is a part of one of their blog posts that really spoke to me:

And I'm also reminded of a Martin Joseph song from the 1980's called "Treasure the question". As a new young Christian student in the late 1980's the one thing that our teaching definitely did not encourage us to do was to "treasure the question". As good modernist evangelicals, questions were to be used as launching pads into pre-prepared answers, and in spiritual whist, the pre-prepared answer was deemed to trump the question and end the game. Suggestions that the pre-prepared answer might not be entirely adequate in the face of real life, often resulted in the questioner being treated as an embarrassment, and subjected to "ministry", or being isolated altogether for fear of contamination. I think that one of the most positive things that the postmodern era can bring is about being able to "treasure the question" and enjoy the adventure of not knowing, with honesty and authenticity.

Apart from the obvious show of good taste in Christian music, this post says something important about postmodern theology as well. I think there's something in the ability to "treasure the question" that's good for our integrity, too - the ability to say that we don't have all the answers, only God does. It keeps us humble.

A mate asked me a couple of days ago what I thought about postmodernism. He'd been reading some books that said it was a really bad thing from a Christian perspective, but he felt that the books were so negative that they showed a lack of love. At that point I know that something has already gone wrong. I was reminded of Brian Maclaren in "The Church on the Other Side" who said something like: the church can resist postmodernism, but it's like resisting change in the English language. You can do it if you want, but you'll just end up sounding irrelevant.

See, the really, really ironic thing is that the postmodern ethos can trace its roots right back to the Reformation. Those naughty, naughty ideas of rejecting a centralised authority figure and allowing every man to determine his own interpretation of the truth, those are the outcomes of the Reformation that we Evangelicals particularly pride ourselves on after breaking away from the Catholic church. If we then reject postmodernism, we're saying that it's OK for us to do but it's not OK if the world does it, and that's not good.

There's a lovely site called Christian Agnostic, and I go there for inspiration from time to time. Because that's me: a Christian agnostic. I don't have all the answers. There's an amazing amount I don't know. I know not why God's wonderous grace to me has been made known. This is anathema to the modernist cause, which must be able to draw a straight line from the question to the answer. I know not how this saving faith to me He did impart. This is anathema to soteriology, which needs to develop and baptise a certain interpretation of the cross. I know not how the Spirit moves convicting men of sin. I get out there and witness to him, but I know that I cannot persuade people, and I know that if it is the Spirit's job then I am not the one to ram grace down their throats. I know not what good or ill may be reserved for me.

But I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him until that day.

And until that day, I'll treasure the questions. I hope you will too.