My second day in Minneapolis began early. We did not get back to our hotel until 11 PM last night and we were roused at 6 AM to get up and ready in time to get to an early breakfast with Justin Taylor and Roger and Amy of A-Team Blog. I had hoped to meet Roger last year when I was at the Shepherd’s Conference, but it did not work out, so it was nice to get in touch with him this time. We had a good time of fellowship, talking primarily about blogging (as you might expect). There is still no wireless in the convention center, so my posts today may be sporadic as it is possible that I will have to travel back to my hotel to find an Internet connection.
Last night David Wells taught about “The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World.” This morning Voddie Baucham will build on that foundation by discussing “The Supremacy of Christ and Truth in a Postmodern World.” He will be followed over the course of the day by Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll and D.A. Carson. Voddie is an author, teacher and apologist. He has written a book, The Ever-Loving Truth, which helps Christians apply God’s Word to contemporary life. He serves as adjunct professor at The College of Biblical Studies in Houston, Texas and Union University in Jackson, Mississippi.
He began by reflecting on the propriety of quoting a person who is sitting in the audience, referring to D.A. Carson who was sitting in the front row. Carson gave him permission to quote him as he saw fit. Voddie then said that his intention today is based on a prayer he offered to God: “Grant me grace to stand up, speak up, and shut up.”
The supremacy of Christ is the issue at hand. Postmodernism is not what is supreme in this world. If there is an issue between Christ and postmodernism, Christ must win. There are two main competing worldviews in our culture and they have been referred to by many different titles. There is Christian theism on the one hand, and secular humanism on the other. Secular humanism does not acknowledge God for it begins with human knowledge. This is ironic, though, because the majority of people in our culture are secular humanists who believe in some kind of God.
Christian theism and truth
Christian theism views ethics as absolute while secular humanism views them as cultural and negotiable. What is ethical in one culture is not necessarily what is ethical in another. Each culture and each period of history negotiates its own ethics.
There are four basic questions that every person asks, no matter the time or place a person lives: Who am I? Why am I here? What is wrong with the world? How can what is wrong be made right? We may not all ask them in that form, but it is in the soul of each person to wrestle with these issues. He will answer these first from the perspective of our culture and then turn to Colossians 1 to answer them from Scripture.
Secular Humanist Perspective
Who am I? You are nothing! You are an accident, a mistake. You are a glorified ape and that is all you are. You are the result of random evolutionary processes. There is no rhyme, no reason, no purpose.
Why am I here? To consume and enjoy. No amount is ever enough as we always want a little bit more. All that matters is power. The answers to the first two questions bring about the social Darwinism that has caused such harm to the world.
What is wrong with the world? People are either insufficiently educated or insufficiently governed. People either don’t know enough or they aren’t being watched enough.
How can what is wrong be made right? More education and more government. Teach people more stuff. The problem is that if you take a sinful human being and teach him more, you create a person with greater ability to destroy. Then we govern them more, but who governs the governors?
Biblical Perspective
How, then, do we respond as Christians? Colossians chapter 1 shows how the Bible responds to the same questions.
Who am I? Colossians 1:15-20 - the text doesn’t answer the question because it doesn’t start with me. The text starts with Christ because of the supremacy of Christ. The text begins with Christ as the creator of all things. Who am I begins with who Jesus is, for He is God. So who am I? I am the crowning glory of the creation of God. I am not accident! I have inherent dignity and worth and value. Christian theism cannot comprehend racism, classism and eugenics. “Christian theism looks at the black man and the not-so-black man (you categorize the world the way you want to, I’ll categorize it the way I want to). But it’s okay that you’re not black like me. God loves you just the way you are!” Here is the lingering and hovering question: within the confines of Christian theism there is no room for racism and other issues, yet we know of Christian cultures that embraced racism and slavery. Narrative is not normative. Just because it happened doesn’t mean it’s right. The more important question is what made it stop. What was the underlying worldview that rose up and showed the dissonance? We’ll learn that it was wrong by the standard of the supremacy of Christ.
Why am I here? Colossians 1:15-16 - Christian theism teaches that all things were created to bring Him glory and honor so He might have the supremacy in all things. This is why we all exist. He is to have supremacy and preeminence in all things. “God is not against us having things, but against things having us.” So much of what we do, what we study, what jobs we have, are based on our desire to consume and enjoy rather than to pursue the supremacy of Christ. We look for prestige rather than Christ.
What is wrong with the world? Colossians 1:21 - We are what is wrong with the world! We are God’s crowning creation and yet are hostile towards the one by whom and for whom we were created. The question is not “if God is good why do bad things happen?” but “how on earth can a holy and righteous God know what I did and thought and said yesterday and not kill me in my sleep last night?” Until we ask the question that way, we believe that the problem is “out there.” We believe that we are part of the solution rather than the problem. The problem with the world is me. The problem is the fact that I do not acknowledge the supremacy of Christ. I start with me as the measure of all things. The problem is that I judge God based by how well He carries out my agenda for the world, and I believe in the supremacy of me. As a result I want a God who is omnipotent but sovereign since then I can wield his power. If He is both omnipotent and sovereign, I am at His mercy.
How can what is wrong be made right? Colossians 1:22-23 - We see two things in this last set of statements. First, what is wrong can be made wrong by the penal substitutionary death of Christ and second that it cannot be made right any other way. We see the supremacy of Christ in His exclusivity. There is no other way in which men can be justified. Every other religion basically teaches that we need to ensure we do more good than bad and hope for the best. Three problems: I can’t be good because I am totally, radically depraved; What about all the things I did before my religious experience?; Where is my assurance? The answer to all of this is the supremacy of Christ. What is wrong can be made right by the blood of Jesus. “Christ paid a debt He did not owe on behalf of a people who could not pay Him back.”
We are the crowing creation of God, here to bring glory to Christ. We are what is wrong with the world, living as we do in pursuit of the supremacy of self, but all that is wrong can be made right through the atoning death of Christ and through repentance and faith on the part of sinners. When you juxtapose these worldviews, on the one hand you are left empty and hopeless. Man is left worthless, left to pursue his own satisfaction. On the other, you are precious, you have a purpose but you are powerless. This is okay, though, because you were purchased. This is the supremacy of Christ in truth in a postmodern world. As we walk through the highways and byways and look into the lifeless eyes of those who have bought this lie, let us rest assured that we possess the answer and are possessed by the answer. The answer is Christ and His supremacy in truth. Let us rest assured that those who walk aimlessly through life will never be satisfied by the answers of culture and the further we have run from Christ’s supremacy, the further we have run from the only thing that will ever satisfy and will ever suffice. Let us rest assured that the supremacy of Christ in truth also means the sufficiency of Christ in truth. Let us embrace this, and proclaim it passionately, confidently and relentlessly for after all, that is why we are here.
This was a powerful message—one of the most powerful I’ve heard in a long time. Be sure to get the audio recording of this one! It will be available for free from Desiring God’s web site within a few days.
Comments (10) »
1. Catez
September 30, 2006
2:08 PM
I liked a lot of that. Particularly the standpoint of creation - reminds me of the 1st century kerygma in many ways.
Does seem to confuse postmodernism and secular humanism though - they are not necessarily the same thing. A postmodern view can also be a theist view, and the issue is plurality and of course the universalism that results. The narrative becomes relative in terms of religious belief and practice in postmodernism, since it is lumped under cultural narratives. The issue is not theism, but absolutes - and on that point I agree.
2. donsands
September 30, 2006
3:21 PM
That was an excellent teaching.
Appreciate your labor in the Lord. (1 Cor, 3:9)
3. Shawn
September 30, 2006
3:47 PM
Loved the post. Great job, and thank you for the hard work.
4. Adrian Warnock
September 30, 2006
5:59 PM
Well, as often I am “remote blogging” over at my place. How come your pastor beat you to session 3 and where is session 4?
I hope you are all OK over there!
5. MH
September 30, 2006
6:11 PM
Tim,
In the second sentence of the paragraph that begins “How can what is wrong be made right?” I think you meant “what is wrong can be made right…” not “what is wrong can be made wrong…”
Just wanted to give you that heads up…
6. Michael Rudzena
September 30, 2006
7:45 PM
While listening to Vodie describe “postmodern secular humanism” I realized that his extremely articulate and impassioned description of this system more accurately reflected a MODERN secular humanism.
The view he calls “postmodern secular humanism” is described as largely athiestic, materialistic, and filled with meaninglessness. With his several allusions to Darwinism and evolution one can’t help but think of the modern secular humanism that many have referred to as naturalism. This was a worldview where reason and science were relied upon to understand the world…a world these people believed could be known.
Postmodern secular humanism (PSH) on the other hand is not so certain. While I agree that this view leaves people with an existence marked by materialism and meaninglessness much like modern secular humanism (MSH), these two groups arrive here differently.
MSH has arrived at meaninglessness and materialism by employing reason and science. PSH arrives here for epistemological reasons. They don’t believe that anything can be known for certain. They do not deny a meaning out there necessarily (in as much as they would not deny a God out there) but they simply believe this is beyond the scope of human ability to know. And so they are left with meaninglessness and materialism.
Very similar destinations. Different paths getting there.
7. Jim
September 30, 2006
8:58 PM
We missed the panel discussions and I didn’t find anything on them here. Is it possible to capture the essence of them and publish it here?
If not, thanks for your good work. This is a great way to help me remember the key points of the speakers.
Jim
8. Russ Davis
September 30, 2006
10:02 PM
One of my frustrations with Desiring God and most professing Christians who should know better were the Supremacy of Christ and Biblical Authority taken as seriously as God demands it to be taken is the absurdity of ceding to modern secularists the flagrantly illegitimate “right” to determine reality, in such things as “race” and “creation” and so-called “science” in general, sadly blind to the fact that it was Christian young earth creationists established modern science in the first place (the fact is that there was no other kind of Christian until Darwin’s apostasy and there’s no showing of such that I can’t prove is a lie or a fraud; many have vainly tried)! It seems mostly to be from ignorance, but I’m very frustrated that even among those most opposed to postmodernism and secular humanism there’s an incredibly ironic view that it’s preferable to reject the truth of young earth creationism, the only Biblical and scientific position, unanimously averred by Israel and the Church until the Darwin apostasy because of alleged but never proven nastiness (e.g. Ankerberg vs Ham) and lack of agreement with “modern science” (seemingly according to the ludicrous view that a “majority” of modernists determines either truth or science). See www.answersinGenesis.org for both biblical and scientific defense of the only Biblical and scientific position, young earth creationism, as well as the irrefutable scientific fact that “race” is an evil fiction invented by evolutionists, that there are only the two races of the first and second Adams, and that others like the “negro” and “caucasian” are frauds invented and believed only by God rejecters, wittingly or not, sadly including most ignorant professing Christians . See the free online book “One Blood” at www.answersinGenesis.org that proves that for those who love God and His truth there is one race, the human race.
As a tangent, the same kind of diabolical lie is told about the antibiblical fraud of the phony “homosex” wordgroup exposed and refuted at www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=18-10-036-f
even though most professing Christians, even those combatting it, refuse to stop using the bogus wordgroup, sadly conforming themselves in their words to the sodomite agenda even as they claim to be fighting it, rejecting the Scripture’s command that all of us, including our speech, be conformed to Christ alone Who alone is worthy, sadly including even most so-called “apologists” who show by their actions they’re more interested in people than God, for which they owe God an apology!
9. Reid Monaghan
September 30, 2006
11:14 PM
I would like to echo that though this message was very good, it should have been titled “The Supremacy of Christ and the Truth in a Modernistic World” - Bauchman clearly represented a humanistic/nihilistic worldview not a postmodern one. Just for interest, Bauchman’s four questions may have been answered as follows:
1. Who am I? A postmodern reply would be along the lines of the ecclectic self. A person is how they are self-defined through their choices and cultural proclivities. One may choose to self-identify with certain groups, causes, styles, beliefs, brands, music, film etc. The postmodern person can build their self how they see fit. It is a fundamental denial of an ontological and universal human nature…in its place is substituted a constructed self made in the image of the choices of the autonomous man.
2. Why am I here? We are here…there is not an ultimate explanation for this fact. Due to this reality, and my felt need for meaning, the postmodern desire is to create this meaning in community and live it there. Ultimate metanarratives are replaced by mini narratives which we create (with language) and enjoy ourtogether.
3. What’s wrong with the world? Human beings have for millenia had the perchant to absolutize the views of their tribe. As a result peoples have sought to conquer, destroy, and oppress others with their absolutist ideologies…many times using such elegant tools of persuasion such as tanks. This in the postmodern mind is very bad [don’t ask if it is absolutely bad - that would be obnoxious of you]
4. How can this wrong be made right? Human beings should embrace a tolerant view of the world where all views are equally valued, even celebrated, and human beings are thereby free, without fear, to create meaning and enjoy the creation and enjoyment of their selves.
10. Catez
October 1, 2006
1:26 AM
Michael and Reid - excellent comments! I’ll just say ditto.