Too often lives are designed on flawed fundamental truths. Take for example current cultural debates, marriage equality being the hotest at the moment, not only here in the United States but also around the world.
Fundamental truths essential to the Christian faith are at stake in these cultural debates, notonly in society at large but also within ecclesial bodies. These basic truths range from issues of theism to biblical authority, the nature of human beings, God’s purpose in creation, sin, salvation, and by extension, to the entire body of Christian doctrine. One’s posture on contemporary issues is determined by the presuppositions one holds in formulating their position on these foundational truths. Therefore, it is difficult to discuss cultural “values” because both parties walk roads that begin at different points, and do not run parallel; thus they arrive at different destinations.
The claims advanced by either side of a debate are proffered with a great deal of integrity, but founded on separate sets of presuppositions. Debates at the level of cultural application will lead to conclusions less than satisfactory to one side or the other. Debate must begin with understanding and acknowledging the separate foundational presuppositions whether or not both parties ascribe to them. If it begins anywhere past that beginning point, the debate will most certainly fail to arrive at any consensus, if it ever even gets past each side seeking to prove the other wrong.
The fundamentalist position would say, for example, that if the claims of revisionist interpreters of Scripture are valid, then the very basis of biblical inspiration is invalidated. Scripture would be wrong, misdirected and ambiguous and the entire evangelical paradigm, biblical authority and all, will not stand.
It’s the evangelical paradigm that has fallen, moderates would say, and not Scripture or biblical authority. Therefore, they would argue that the evangelical paradigm fell precisely because it was founded on a misguided presupposition on biblical authority and the nature of the Bible.
The challenge faced by Christianity today is not a cultural debate or political posturing or doctrinal belief. The challenge is a basic hermeneutical one—how to interpret and understand the Bible and its claims on all God’s children. Until the debate is waged on this level, the sparing about culture and its values will produce little more than heat. (Some people view values narrowly and interpret them basedon their presuppositions. However, to be fair, both sides of any debate have values, but they are not the same because of different presupposition sets.)
At stake are human lives designed by attending to these flawed fundamental truths, flawed on all sides, while, at the same time, all sides desire to give witness to the grace-giving story of God reclaiming his creation. Let’s listen to each other, really listen, and try to get inside each other’s paradigms—for the human lives that long for civil discourse.
