Unchanging Truths and Our Changing World
by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. Vol. VII, No. 5, June 1994
[Dr. Al Mohler is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY. This article is reprinted from the winter 1994 issue of The Tie. Bold print added.]
America at the end of the twentieth century is a society in the midst of a culture-shift. All around us are signs that our culture is being transformed by a constellation of forces including the electronic media, a post-industrial economy, rapid demographic change, and a breakdown of shared moral values.
All this comes as the memory of the Christian worldview becomes ever more remote from modern consciousness. Questions concerning right and wrong are now reduced to arguments over individual rights. What was once unmentionable has now become the focus of mainstream entertainment. Americans have increasingly lost the capacity for shame, and sin has been banished as a category for pubic conversation.
But the problem is even worse, for the very notion of objective truth is itself denied by millions of Americans. As the late professor Allan Bloom warned in The Closing of the American Mind, "There is one thing a professor can be absolutely sure of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative."
The Barna Research Group released a study two years ago indicating that 67% of Americans reject the very idea of absolute truth, and that 52% of self-identified "born again" Christians shared that belief!
The report continued, "The typical adult would argue that what is considered truth by me may not be the same truth to which you ascribe – and neither one of us is necessarily wrong, even if our respective truths are in conflict."
This new reality represents a fundamental challenge to the Christian Church. Either we will stand against the tide and speak for absolute truth, or we will abdicate the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
Christianity stands or falls on the basis of its truth claim, and that claim is to absolute truth, not mere subjectivity and relativism. The Lord who claimed to be "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," cannot be served by disciples who reject the very notion of absolute truth.
The task of proclaiming Christ in the midst of this changing culture requires that we make clear our witness to Jesus Christ and His gospel as a truth more true than anything else the world can know – and not as a matter of mere religious preference or private discrimination. Americans – including many church members – have so concentrated on religious experience that they have neglected or even denied the foundation of that experience.
In the midst of a changing world, the Church must uphold its witness to what G.K. Chesterton called the "permanent things." There is no genuine Christianity other than that based upon absolute truth – on the truth of God the Creator and Sustainer of all things; on Jesus Christ as the incarnate Word, our Messiah and Mediator; on salvation through Jesus Christ and His atoning death as our substitute; and the Hope of Glory as our promise for eternity.
Southern Seminary was founded upon this faith, and there we will stand without apology as we move into the future. We bear the challenge of preparing a generation of God-call ministers of the Gospel who are ready to take front-line positions as we proclaim biblical truth in troubled times. This will require the greatest degree of commitment, and the highest quality of consecrated scholarship.
Our Lord promised His disciples, "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" [John 8:32]. These are challenging days for the Church, for theological seminaries, and for individual Christians as we seek to proclaim Christ in a changing world. But these are exciting days as well, for our opportunity is to speak the truth in love, and to demonstrate the truth in life.
The world is watching, the churches are waiting, and lives are hanging in the balance. And that is the absolute truth.