Teaching
in Contradiction
In
a recent Barna poll, the first question was carefully
crafted, "Are you a born-again evangelical Christian"? Only those who answered affirmatively were
surveyed. The rest of the questions really
orbited that one - did Jesus sin; is the Holy Spirit real; is there such a
thing as moral truth; etc. - all questions defining a born again evangelical
Christian. But the answers showed that
something was radically wrong. There was
a disconnect between the first answer and the rest.
Francis
Schaeffer stressed that people differ widely in their basic philosophical
(theological) framework - elements forming the basis for their
worldviews. He didn't mean by this that
they merely disagreed on some issues. He
meant that they are not compatible on the level of underlying assumptions. Most are not even cognizant of their own worldviews
or how they came to accept certain assumptions as truth. And they haven't given much thought to the
lack of awareness, frameworks, and assumptions of others. He also noted
that people have adopted spurious reasoning so that people are not
functioning logically within their own assumptions. In other words, they are not self-consistent
- there are contradictory "givens" within the accepted mental
grids illogically held together [see
War…
Therefore
words and phrases from different concepts of reality take on different
meanings and connotations. This not only
describes society in general, but the church in general and many individual
churches in particular. Schaeffer said that
in order to actually communicate we need to speak in paragraphs (rather than
words and phrases) defining what we mean as well as what we don't mean. Scripture does this - see Ps.1. That is the only way to lift a conversation
out of its default framework into a common ground for both parties [see Problems Defining http://pop.eradman.com/].
Christians
really do want to learn [see http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2009/01/a-theology-of-indifference/comment-page-1/#comment-16168]. It is
logical to preach/teach an overview dealing with framework as a whole as in The
Story of the Bible [Key to the Bible http://pop.eradman.com/] demonstrating good
logic in the process. But it is not
enough to insert basic concepts of Christianity into the "accepted" frame
of reference because a faulty manor of thinking is also part of what has
been absorbed. Right thinking is
required as a kind of connective tissue between facts (truths). Both the overview and the way
people think must be addressed along with their respective reasons. Once the new
(Biblical) framework is in place, material can be introduced to fill it
out, all the while demonstrating correct reasoning. This change cannot be accomplished in one,
two, or even three sessions, and the further apart the sessions, the less
impact they will have. The Barna poll shows that the alternative, piecemeal dealing
with passages in a thematic way, results in the message being adapted to and
inserted into the default framework rather than the challenging of the
presuppositions at the foundational level.
Often this goes unnoticed because faulty
reasoning accommodates the new information into its concept grid. It doesn't recognize the contradictions as
such or that the contradictions make any difference.