By Samuel James, TGC.
What makes Christians different from our secular neighbors?
Certainly, our worship of the risen Christ and love for others should mark us out. Our lifestyle—fighting against sin, and running after joyful holiness—should provide contrast too. But I’d like to submit one more subtle, but crucial difference. Christians care about what’s true. Not just what’s helpful or pleasant, but what’s objectively true.
In the ruins of postmodern deconstruction, many people feel the need for rock-solid convictions, but look for them in all the wrong places. And one of the most common places is experience. In Western culture especially, “my story, my truth,” is not just a self-help mantra. It’s a powerful dogma. Many people have no sense of truth beyond their own personal self-narrative.
Christianity challenges this. It’s Christianity’s objective character, its factfulness, that cuts a sharp contrast to the therapeutic spirituality of contemporary society. Evangelicals need to fight hard to keep the factfulness of Christianity before us, and to hold onto it, despite temptations in a polarized cultural moment to surrender our belief formation to experience. Our experiences shape our beliefs, but they shouldn’t determine them.
Current Challenges
Not long ago I was listening to an evangelical writer give an interview about the writer’s own political and theological journey. The interviewer noticed that the writer seemed less conservative and less traditional these days than in the recent past, and had sometimes received criticism—including some insulting, demeaning comments—from fellow evangelicals for it.
In response, the writer talked at length about feeling betrayed by his fellow evangelicals. They had, in his view, taken a hypocritical, harsh, and cynical turn. The writer felt an understandable hurt and confusion over some of the ideological realignment that had been going on within his tribe the last few years.