It was only a matter of time (and I’ve probably missed some prior attacks he’s already made on Emergent Church, etc.) before Al Mohler throws his hat into the ring and lists the dangers of the postmodern theology.

A sample from his post today:

This “more relative understanding of truth” includes an open rejection of absolute truth or the appropriateness of expressing truth claims in propositional forms. According to Tomlinson, “post-evangelicals are less inclined to look for truth and propositional statements in old moral certainties and more likely to seek it in symbols, ambiguities, and situational judgment.” How convenient. The post-evangelicals envision a Christianity free from all claims of absolute and comprehensive truth, liberated from the Bible’s restrictive moral commands, and severed from awkward claims of revealed truth.

Mohler is a perfect example of the kind of blind “obedience” to a doctrinal purity that seems content to live on the attacking of “godless” philosophies. Thing is, he provides a perfect living example of why there’s a “postmodern” movement in the first place. His divorcing of Christianity from real life, and relegating it to a doctrinal squabble. His total cluelessness about social problems, and his unwillingness , via his “theology”, to address issues that lie outside the scope of his “canon” of prooftexts, or to apply a hopelessly irrelevant line or argument to it based on some intellectual de-construction that leans heavily on fundamentalist thinking. It defies the imagination.

Just so you know, Mohler’s “absolute truths” are carefully constructed “Biblical” interpretations whose aim is to keep the Christian out of relevance to the culture, and certainly “out of the way” of governmant (that is, when it’s being run by “chosen” candidates or “approved” candidates). It’s also alarmingly opposed to just about any challenges to the status quo “American way of life”, a nd therefore social ministries of just about anykind are constantly under attack as “unBiblical” in some bizarre , doctrinal spin.

For example, if it’s “too Anti-American”, then it is suspect under the “Umbrella theology” that says that we are to “submit to the authorities” under some Romans passage (can’t recall the citation right now)…but it’s often called “the magistrate” passage)….of course, that only applies when the government is one of their “blessed” ones…….there’s no room for any discernment other than what the religious right has “established” as THE Christian perspective. There’s certainly no room for “anti-war”. A lot of these Christains use “just war” in a way totally foreign to the establishment of that doctrine, in our day when war has become something totally different and beyond all imagination of the original framers (like Augustine). Using “just war” in a context like Iraq is utterly ridiculous, but it’s not our country or our innocent civilians who are being subjected to bombs…..it’s all happening “over there”, and so it’s all fine, and we can stand by and “wave the flag”.

Basically, Mohler defends “old moral certainties” by just saying “yes there are”, and insisiting that the Bible represents clearly stated “revealed truth”. Thing is, I read the Bible , too. I get a totally different message. It seems to have concerns about the poor, about love, about WAR —- but some “context” and “guiding principles” like “compassion” and “unconditional love” have to be applied, not some “system” for “weeding out” “wrong thinkers”. The “Bible” is not the domain of the fundamentalists, who seem to emphasize the “correct interpretation” over what would seem to be the priorities of discerning how to live humbly and justly and find God’s call for us. Believing in the Bible’s “timeless truths” requires a bit of sociology, and this goes way beyond identifying the Bible’s “timeless truths” with a set of “litmus tests” that some self-procalimed authority has made of equal imprtance with the call to follow Christ. They deny this, but they keep coming back to “but if you believe Jesus, you believe the Bible, which MUST cause you to come to conclusions A, B, C, D, and any number of additonal letters (kind of like “letterof the law”). A Biblical hermeneutic which emphasizes peace, justice, renouncing materialism, war, and other “cultural icons” is often met with cries of “heresy”, becuase this challenges a system that these fundamentalists find to their liking. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. To me, their “wolf-ly parts” hang out in quite an obvious manner. Their platitudes do not impress me. Their outlook on the world does not jive with the heart of Christ.

The Bible’s “restrictive moral comands” is only valid for those of Mohler’s camp when those “commands” don’t call into quesiton a dangerous precedent and militaristic “holy war” that is a disturbing mongrelaization of the Christian faith with nationalistic “religion”. If such a Biblical slant is detected, then the theological police come out and denounce it as “liberal” and “humanistic” (imagine, the idea of being “humanisitc” is abhorrent to the fundamentalists, as if beeing compassionate and interested in helping people reach their full potential is a bad thing….to them, of course, it’s automatically a secular thing to be “humanistic”.

Tony Campolo wrote a book a few years back called “The Success Fantasy”, which was basically a book about following the way of Christ as opposed to seeking fulfillent in the world’s standards of “success”. To me, the Christian Right is a conservative government’s dream lobby group, which has the power to “sway” and “placate” its members with its baptisms of the methods and philosophies of the political party, and melding it with “theological” fervor of an authoritarian variety, so that policies are “wrapped in righteousness” and therefore unquestionably “right” and “obvious” (because someone has worked out all the “biblical mandates” and “justifications” for it, and desseminated this to the masses via carefully worded and argued “proof texting” and arguments. This gets passed down to the people and assimilated into tests of doctrinal purity, to the extent that it becomes almost automatically assumed that a Christian is a Republican. I find this disturbing, especially since the Democrats emphasize the justice issues, but then again, not surprising, since justice issues often call into question policies which work against the poor, and therefore challenge the status quo, most of which is zealously defended as a bedrock of the “Christian nation” and therefore something must be wrong with someone whose theology takes tham in that direction. Often, the motives are assumed to be a part of some satanic force or conspiracy (kind of like how Jesus was often viewed by relgious leaders of his day—— and it’s not just JEWISH religious leaders who have done this……Christians have done it for centruries whenever cherished assumptions are called into question. People who opposed slavery were considered heretics. People who quesitoned the idea of the sun revolving around the earth were executed. Religious history is chock full of errant assumptions ruling the roost, and elevated to the role of “timeless truth” and “moral certainty”.

I don’t know why the “rule of love” is not the litmus test from which all “truth seeking” is measured. What is God’s best? What are God’s best plans for the world, and the people in it? Why not start there?