Wariness of The Truth Project

Unlike my previous statement, I’ll try to ratchet back my sour tone. To be sure, I do not think the people at Focus on the Family are a bunch of ninnies looking to make an extra buck by pawning off clever lesson series on overeager churches willing to buy anything that glitters with their logo. They do care for the church and have rightly pointed out the need for the church to reconsider her identity within our current cultural context. As they quote from Romans 12, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” And as they highlight in The Truth Project series, part of the way Christians renew their minds is by reapplying and reinterpreting scripture into our current cultural context. In other words, how can scripture help us to discern what is the will of God in the here and now?

However, the fact that they have some helpful insights and suggestions concerning the church’s faithfulness today does not exempt them from critique of several glaring problems in their presentation. I think that it is obvious that there is a great deal of solid Christian teaching found in The Truth Project, and I don't feel the need to point those out. What is not obvious are the pitfalls, dangers, and errors found in this project. So here a just a few observations that should give Christians pause before taking the teachings of The Truth Project at face value.

1. Faulty Assumptions
An example of the type of fallacy at work throughout The Truth Project is the way they will base an argument and a solution on an erroneous observation. For instance, if I were to say that Darwin’s theory of evolution states that God is a monkey. Then, based on this observation, I go to great lengths arguing how Darwin is wrong, as well as state all of the important reasons why we as Christians should not consider God as a monkey. While my argument might be sound, and my reasons my be important, all of this is for not because it based on a false understanding of Darwin's theory. How helpful would that be to anyone? I’m not suggesting that we not critique Darwin, but in order to give the best critique of Darwin, we must first be so well acquainted with his theory that we are able to give it a fair summary that even Darwin would agree with.

Postmodernism
One faulty assumption at work in the Truth Project is their notion of what postmodernism is. But I’ve already blabbed about this one in my previous post. Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, you can disagree with and critique aspects of postmodernism, but this must done out of a solid understanding of what it is you are critiquing.

Unhelpful Categories
Another faulty assumption is they way they categorize the conversation on truth, namely that all of reality can be located in two eternally consistent categorical columns – True vs. False; Fact vs. Fiction; History vs. Myth. This sort categorization is a living monument to naiveté. Contrary to popular belief, the people of God have not categorized reality in this way for thousands upon thousands of years. But don’t take my word for it, take the fairly conservative historical theologian Thomas C. Oden and his book After Modernity...What?. In short, he critiques both modern and postmodernism from the perspective of a multimillennia old community called the church. He also points out from this perspective that the tendency for the church to categorize in this two-columned fashion is relatively new (200 years old) and definitely not a perspective that is grounded in either scripture or historical theology. This, compounded with the fact that this sort of categorization does not take into account the ways in which fiction can be true, while cold hard facts can be misleading and even meaningless.

2. Ignorance of the Broader Conversation in Theology and Philosophy
Cartesian Categories
If they were truly acquainted with a broader scope of theology and philosophy they would know that when they break down reality into two categories, they are perpetuating a way of thinking and talking that was formulated by Rene Descartes and further developed by countless other Enlightenment thinkers. While this might seem to be a simple and helpful way to understand reality, it oversimplifies the highly nuanced way God’s people have understood what is good, right, just, and true. In the process of this oversimplification they have actually created a distorted understanding of how we come to know things as true. Descartes wanted to ground all truth in one foundational concept. While that is very appealing, it is fundamentally misguided. We come to know that 2+2=4 is true differently than how we come to know that a friend loves us with agape love. We are using the word “true” in both instances, but we come to that knowledge in very different, but valid ways. Both Descartes and the Truth Project assume that we validate and ground all truth in one foundational method of discernment that can help us on the grail-like quest for certainty. In short, the way in which the Truth Project claims to validate truth is one that is found neither in scripture nor in the historical development of theology, but rather in a philosophical view that was born in the 17th century.

Veritology?
Another clue that The Truth Project is not all that well acquainted with the very philosophy they attempt to teach is their use of Veritology. They mention in their study guide:

Those of you who are very astute will recognize that “veritology” does not exist in the dictionary. The reason for that is simple: I made this word up. I was in need of a word for “the study of truth” or “the truth about truth”… So, I decided I would do some combining as well. I took the Latin term for truth, “veritas” and combined it with the derivation of the Greek suffix, “logos” and the merger resulted in “Veritology”, the “study of truth”.

This is all well and good. The only thing is that there is already a word used to describe that activity. It’s called epistemology:

Epistemology – (noun) The theory of knowledge, esp. with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.

The fact that this is a well-known branch of philosophy coupled with their obliviousness to its existence makes me dubious at best as to their competence in presenting this material.

3. Stifling dialogue
People have the choice to accept or deny Christ and his body, the church. However, we have a responsibility of making sure that all people taste, see, hear, smell and touch Christ. It has been my experience, on countless occasions, that the focus-on-the-family way of talking and presenting Christ has not only disgusted people who are looking for God, but even worse, they have given people a distorted understanding of Christ. I find that they disagree not with the way of Christ, but rather a false understanding of Christ. As I mentioned before, everyone has the freedom to accept or deny Christ, but they can only truly do that once Christ has been clearly embodied before them. And how can Christ be truly embodied before them if they cannot understand him. The Truth Project might present Christ in a nice-and-tidy way to believers, but to many non-believers it is not only unintelligible but also repellent.

Christians can do better (and are doing better) at asking these two monumentally important questions:
1. What does it mean for Christians to be a faithful embodiment/incarnation of Christ in the current cultural context?
2. How can we faithfully dialogue with people who are otherwise lame, mute, blind, or deaf to the "good news" of Jesus Christ?

Other Posts on The Truth Project:
1. The Truth Project?
3. The Truth Project: Simply a Bad Way of Talking
I also want to include this link to Hackman's Musings. He has honored me with a link to these pages, and I would be remiss not to link back to his thoughts on this topic. He makes numerous spot-on critiques and observations, as well as facilitates a much larger conversation in his comment section.

1. The Truth Project: Part 1
2. The Truth Project: Part 2