The Truth War? (or, Which Truth Might That Be?)

How is this for a book? The Truth War…ooooooooh…aaaaahhhhhh. It even has a nasty old snake on the cover, a Pagan symbol if there ever was one. This should be our first warning about this book, in that it betrays an ignorance of the Bible. Originally, the snake in the Garden of Eden was just that: a snake. Nothing else. A SNAKE. Get it?

This is not a new book (it was published in April of 2007), and I really would rather avoid delving into the views of the Christian Right in this country but as their views continue to be intolerant of everything outside themselves, I’m often left with little choice but to question their viewpoint. This book is typical:

Here is what they say about it on Amazon.com:

Product Description
Right now, Truth is under attack, and much is at stake. Christians are caught in the crossfire of alternative Christian histories, emerging faulty texts, and a cultural push to eliminate absolute Truth altogether. As a result, many churches and Christians have been deceived. Worse still, they propagate the deception that poses itself as Truth! In The Truth War John MacArthur reclaims the unwavering certainty of God’s Truth and anchors Christians in the eternal, immovable promises that are found in His Word.

About the Author
John MacArthur, the author of numerous best-selling books that have touched millions of lives, is pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and president of The Master’s College and Seminary. He is also president of Grace to You, the ministry that produces the internationally syndicated radio program Grace to You and a host of print, audio, and Internet resources. He authored the notes in the Gold Medallion Award-winning The MacArthur Study Bible. For more information, contact Grace to You at 1-800-55-GRACE.

Let’s examine these points:

1. Right now, Truth is under attack, and much is at stake.
2. Christians are caught in the crossfire of alternative Christian histories, emerging faulty texts, and a cultural push to eliminate absolute Truth altogether.
3. As a result, many churches and Christians have been deceived.
4. Worse still, they propagate the deception that poses itself as Truth!
5. In The Truth War John MacArthur reclaims the unwavering certainty of God’s Truth and anchors Christians in the eternal, immovable promises that are found in His Word.

An obvious problem with the first claim is that of a capital-T “Truth” that trumps all else. No one can prove there is such a thing. And if there is, we have a problem because three major religions all claim that the “one true god” has given them unique access to it (and that doesn’t include the literally thousands of sects within the big three who claim it for themselves).
Of #2 above, one reviewer on Amazon says:

He begins by asserting the reality of objective truth and cataloguing some of the attacks on truth from within the ranks of the church. MacArthur very clearly distances the Christian’s “truth war” from the violent jihad of Islamic fundamentalism, and reminds us that our warfare is not against flesh and blood and is not fought with earthly weapons. But at the same time, he reminds us that we are both ambassadors of the Lord and soldiers in spiritual battle, and that we do not serve the truth well by building alliances with false teachers. Along the way, he develops the original context of Jude’s letter and discusses some of the most important battles against false teaching in the history of the church (for example, the battles against Judaizers, Gnosticism, Sabellianism, and Arianism). He shows how to spot false teachers by pointing out the sin-producing effects of their teaching. As with many of MacArthur’s books, this is a polemic targeted at specific strands of teaching in today’s evangelical church, specifically the Emerging church and one of its primary spokesmen, Brian McLaren.

And Brian McLaren’s heresy? He is willing to see beyond the black and white of conservative Christian ideology. While I do think his reasoning is flawed, isn’t this a more refreshing approach than that of, say, Rick Warren?:

“Even if we are convinced that all homosexual behavior is always sinful, we still want to treat gay and lesbian people with more dignity, gentleness, and respect than our colleagues do. If we think that there may actually be a legitimate context for some homosexual relationships, we know that the biblical arguments are nuanced and multilayered, and the pastoral ramifications are staggeringly complex. We aren’t sure if or where lines are to be drawn, nor do we know how to enforce with fairness whatever lines are drawn.” (“Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question: Finding a Pastoral Response” http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2006/01/brian_mclaren_o.html.)

(From Wikipedia): Though McLaren is opposed to what he asserts are oppressive, Evangelical, biblical hermeneutics, his own hermeneutic is often called into question. Often McLaren’s own view on interpreting the Bible seems to call for others to rethink the whole process of interpretation. In his book, A New Kind of Christian, McLaren writes (via his main character Neo),

“Our interpretations reveal less about God or the Bible than they do about ourselves. They reveal what we want to defend, what we want to attack, what we want to ignore, what we’re unwilling to question…” (A New Kind of Christian, 50)

Point #3 makes an interesting claim, that Christians have been deceived. But by who? They all point fingers. They always have. From MY perspective, Jesus was a Jew and every Gentile who lays claim to him as being some sort of divine figure or who believe YHWH has anything to do with Gentiles, are deceived. The layers of deception are almost endless.
Point #4 is almost as silly. John MacArthur “reclaims the unwavering certainty of God’s Truth” but just as we noted above, this claim has been made by many. As I said, the absolute truth, as near as I can tell, is that Jesus came for the Jews (Why? Well…because Jesus said so). The truth is that there is no “unwavering certainty” to be defended or upheld. Christianity has always been about competing points of view.

What we see here is another appeal to intolerance, intolerance of all opposing views. Another reviewer on Amazon says,

Using the short epistle of Jude, MacArthur shows that the fight for truth has been an ongoing struggle for the Church but with the sword of the Lord, Christians can overcome these attacks against the truth (Ephesians 6:17). This age of tolerance is forcing the Church of God to either rise up and declare with boldness (Proverbs 28:1) that God and His Word alone are the truth (1 Timothy 3:15) or we will lose the war.

The problem (well, okay, ONE problem) with this is that Timothy is a forgery. It wasn’t written by Paul. So somebody pretending to be somebody they’re not telling us to believe something is not a very convincing argument. And this whole context of spiritual warfare is not only polarizing but generates hate for everything not of itself.

This is the climate the rest of us live in. Christians caught in the middle? I suppose so. But so are the rest of us. And I’m not only talking about Pagans but about Muslims and Jews and Buddhists and Hindus and all others who are not of the “big three”. The world is a dangerous enough place without religious strife. Applauding a book that throws gasoline on the fire seems counter-intuitive to me, but then I’m a polytheist, not a monotheist. I don’t believe in a “capital-T” truth. The problem, as should be readily apparent, is monotheism itself, with its many and mutually contradictory “revealed truths” from one apparently very confused and conflicted deity.