Truth and the Church, Part Three

As I listen to sermons, many times I ask the question "if I believed that Christianity was one of many valid religions, could I still listen to this sermon as a truth rather than the truth"? Sadly the answer is often yes.

Francis Schaeffer addresses this issue in his book Escape from Reason. He blamed the communication gaps between speaker and listener on what he called differing "thought forms". This gap occurs when the words being used by the speaker have different underlying meanings for the listener. According to his book, the thought forms that challenged the Church in his day were those of thesis, antitheses, and syntheses. He admonished the Church in his time to understand that the Gospel must be presented in a way to penetrate that kind of thinking.

Present day I am of the belief that the Gospel is often being derailed in this same way, by the relativistic spirit of this age. George Barna's research would seem to confirm that belief as he cites an amazingly high number of Christians who see their religion as only true for themselves. As I gladly evict the Rajah from my head and thoughts forever, I will refer to him one last time. If the Church of Jesus Christ is to be the salt and light it was called to be in our day, the Rajah must also be evicted from the Church and the door diligently guarded to prevent his re-entry.

The Folly of the Rajahs, Part Two

As pointed out in the previous post, the true position of the Rajah is no better or different than the blind men to which he was supposedly imparting wisdom. His balconied position was ultimately one of self exaltation which depended on the blindness of everyone but the blind men to pull off. The intended point of the fable is:

Beyond the obvious absurdity of this statement, if widely accepted, it can also prove to be dangerous. According to Josh McDowell, the most often quoted scripture from the Bible fifty years ago was John 3:16. The most oft quoted scripture today is Mathew 7:1, "judge not lest you be judged". I will talk more about the church next time, but this trend is indicative of the culture as a whole and it's inability and unwillingness to judge. In this age of terrorism, this cultural weakness is made to order for an enemy born out of, and codified, not by a nation state but by a religion. There can be no doubt that Mohammad Atta was committed in his religion, and that that commitment puts the Rajah in a predicament from which his lack of judgement has him ill equipped to extricate himself.

Where there is no revelation, the people perish or cast off restraint.
(Proverbs 29:18)

If history teaches us nothing else at all, it teaches us that it teaches us nothing at all. The writer of Ecclesiastes was correct when he said "there is nothing new under the sun". It would seem that all nations rise only to answer the Siren call to their destruction. Today that call is "there is no truth", or better yet: "all is true", which is the same thing. This statement, which permeates Western culture, embraces blindness. Although allowing for the casting off of restraint for a little while, it has a simultaneous effect of diminishing a culture's ability to resist a strong and confident culture from imposing itself. This point is proven as the flagship of secularism, Europe, finds itself more Islamified year by year through Muslim immigration . As this religion gains more prominence and power, multiculturalism will be no obstacle for Islam's refusal to except it's multicultural designation as "a" religion. It appears apparent that Islamic advancement will not be a peaceful one. For this reason the road ahead is fraught with many dangers, but perhaps the most insidious danger of them all is the folly of the Rajahs.

The Rajah and his Folly, Part One

This is the first of a three part series analyzing and drawing logical conclusions from the ancient fable from India about a Rajah and six blind men. Part two and three will take a look at the damage that the wrong conclusions drawn from the fable are having on society and, more importantly, the Church. To be sure, these conclusions are not the problem, but the symptoms of a more insidious problem: illogical thought processes and the worldview that follows them. As those with a relativist's worldview have used the fable as an aid in explaining an illogical ideology, so will I use it to expose the fallacy of it's argument, and to show how this thinking has permeated the entire culture including the Church.The fable has been popularized in recent years by it's frequent use in illustrating how all religions contain different truths about the same God. Following is a brief synopses of the fable:

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  Visiting the Rajah six blind men, upon entering the palace courtyard, encounter an elephant for the first time. Examining the elephant with their hands, each describes it according to the part he is touching. One says "the elephant is like a tree" (the leg), and another: "the elephant is like a rope" (the tail), a wall (it's side), and so on. The blind men soon begin to argue loudly in their disagreement over the nature of the elephant. The Rajah, awakened by the commotion comes to his balcony and informs the blind men that they are only examining a part, and that they must examine the whole animal to know what an elephant is like.

Though the fable is useless in revealing any truth about God, or religions for that matter, it does inadvertently reveal some truth about the person who would use it to that end. This can be seen by considering the positions and attributes of the players and who they represent. There are the blind men arguing in the court yard; they represent religions. There is the elephant who silently stands there being large; he represents God. And there's the sleeping Rajah who is elevated above the fray, and of course, can see all. He's not suppose to represent anybody, but he ends up representing the relativist.

The thrust of the fable is suppose to draw our attention to the blind men because of their closed-minded, and stubborn refusal to accept all religions as equally valid. But I'd like to divert the reader's attention away from the blind men and toward the person using the fable to make his relativistic point. As one listens to the story, the first question that should be asked is: who does the story teller most relate to? The answer of course is not those dogmatic blind and intolerant religious people arguing down in the courtyard; but rather the reasonable and seeing Rajah standing in his elevated balcony. This is the very reason the fable fails in making it's point. No person has ever escaped the bounds of our existence to be in a position from which religions can be objectively observed as they seek God. So claiming to be wise, they become fools. This is also the reason the fable makes it's unintended point: that those who think all religions are valid are the real narrow-minded blind men. They are blind to the fact that if differing religions disagree, only one can ultimately be true; they are narrow-minded in their lack of willingness to consider the possibility that any one can be true, and true to the exclusion of all others. It also reveals their utter ignorance on matters of religion, and their hypocrisy in the fact that though they themselves are blind, they accuse others of being so.

It has been said that ideals have consequences, and I would add that as of late, so do worldviews. In part 2 I will discuss the dangerous consequences for society of the real narrow mindedness illustrated by the Rajah.