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October 17, 2004
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05:10 PM - Sunday sermon
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This morning, apologist Dr. James White delivered a sermon entitled "The Truth About Truth," in which he characterized our modern society as being uncomfortable with uncompromising truth of the sort which he preaches around the nation.
Dr. White recounts the Johannine account of the private audience in which Pilate asks Jesus “What is truth?” (evidently with a heavy note of sarcasm) just before pronouncing Jesus to be blameless before a vast assemblage of Jewry. The good doctor (of theology) goes on to note that Jesus had answered Pilate's query in an earlier discourse with his disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” We'll get back to these substantive matters after a brief digression or two.
The “Vanilla God” is the idea of a “big grandfather-type god” who can “get along with the Buddhist conception [of god], and the Muslim conception [of god], and the Hindu conception [of god], and even the Jewish conception [of god].”
(Dr. White refers to such broadly ecumenical thinking as “Rodney King” theology, mocking Glen King's ineloquent plea for Los Angeles rioters to stop maiming and killing innocent citizens, “Can't we all just get along?” I would speculate that such racial insensitivity only plays well in disproportionately affluent and white communities, such Simi Valley, CA or Edmond, OK.)
At this point, Dr. White claims that Christians have been put under pressure to defer to the vanilla god since the revival of spirituality and public calls for divine blessing following the attacks of September 11th, 2001. He then goes on to make the (somewhat astonishing) claim that our society is more tolerant of those that quote the Koran than those that quote the Bible.
Dr. White then digressed again in order to brag for a bit about his daughter (a perfectly endearing thing to do) and his alleged defeat of the Reverend Barry Lynn (a somewhat less endearing thing to do) whom White debated awhile ago on the Biblical view of homosexuality.
Eventually, though, Dr. White returns to the matter of Pilate and Jesus, claiming that Pilate was not really concerned with truth, but merely sarcastically dismissive thereof (one wonders if the Greeks had a word for sarcasm and whether the evangelist author who penned the Pilate account was aware of it).
After encouraging all present to boldly proclaim Christian truth wherever they may go, Dr. White wraps up by saying that we ought not turn our backs on Jesus and leave the room without hearing what he has to say about truth, and thus segues perfectly into an altar call.
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