Q & R: Absolute truth

Here’s the Q:

I’m a pastor of a XX church and recently led our “College Plus” group through a study of your book, “Adventures in Missing the Point”. Many times I agreed wholeheartedly with what you said, many times I was more than a little convicted, many times I wanted to scratch my head and say, “What is he trying to say?”. And occasionally I wanted to say, “This guy is crazy!” Sorry about that. 🙂 Anyway, one statement that I really want to ask you about is what you mean when you say, “I hear or read preacher after preacher beating the drum of Absolute Truth, as if the term was on the same level as repentance, salvation, prayer, God, love – as if it were part of the vocabulary of the Bible.” Is it the “absolute” part that you have a problem with? “Truth” is such a major part of the vocabulary of the Bible that its hard for me swallow that comment.
Would it be fair to say that you are not a big fan of “The Truth Project” put out by Focus on the Family? Thanks for the way you’ve stretched and challenged my thinking on many things

R after the jump

R: Thanks for this good question. In short, you’re right: my problem isn’t with “truth” – I’m a passionate seeker for truth! My problem is with the truckload of assumptions that are hidden within the word “absolute” – and its cousin “objective” too. If you put “absolute truth” in the search box on this site, you’ll find a number of places where I’ve addressed this question. I’m not familiar with “the Truth Project,” but I should say I heard a talk by Ryan Dobson (son of James) on the radio recently, and I was quite impressed both with Ryan’s content and his attitude. Sure, there were places I winced a bit, but I do that when I listen to some of my own talks!