← The Alisa Childers Podcast
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- [00:01]
Greg Koukl
Wishing to please the crowd, he released Barabbas, had Jesus scourged and crucified. And I never want to be on Pilate's side, but so much of Christendom seems to be going that direction that they are siding with the villain or the villains, as the case may be, and they are turning their back on the Savior. When I die, I want to hear these words. Well done, good and faithful servant.
- [00:56]
Alisa Childers
Welcome to the Alisa Childers podcast, where we equip Christians to identify the core beliefs of historic Christianity, discern its counterfeits, and proclaim the gospel with clarity, kindness, and truth. And I'm here live in Cincinnati at the Cross Examined Instructor Academy with Greg Koepl, the one and only. So we're gonna talk. I'm very excited for this conversation, Greg, because as you know, me and your colleague Tim Barnett are researching a book on the topic of deconstruction. So it's something we're thinking a lot about, but I think you've been in this game a long time.
- [01:30]
Greg Koukl
A bit. Right.
- [01:31]
Alisa Childers
And in fact, we were talking and you have debated Deepak Chopra. A lot of people may not be aware of that. Michael Shermer, famous atheist, several others on various college campuses. You have a radio ministry, multimedia ministry. You've written amazing books, best selling books. And so I just want to glean from your wisdom, primarily when it comes to the topic of truth, the nature of truth. I think if I'm not exaggerating, I don't think this is an exaggeration to say that our culture has abandoned the idea of truth.
- [02:05]
Greg Koukl
Yeah. Frank Beckwith and I wrote a book and we got published here. I got married in 1998, so it's been a long time, almost 25 years. And it was called Relativism. That's it. I mean, not a fancy title, but I like the subtitle, Feet Firmly planted in midair. Okay. And it was appropriate because people who are relativistic in their thinking, that is, they. They don't believe in truth or in certain categories of truth. In this case, moral truth is what we were talking about mostly in that book. Well, they have no foundation. They're just floating around, so to speak. So what do they have to guide them if they're just floating around? All they have to guide them is themselves. Themselves and their feelings and whatever their convictions happen to be at the moment. Now, they can't say their convictions are true in any deep sense. All they can say is they're true for them. But all that means is that they believe Them, it doesn't mean there's any further significance to them. You know, was Oprah Winfrey said at the Academy Awards, live your truth or something like that? Well, all that is narcissism. You know, I mean, really, that's all it amounts to. It's all about me, you, do you. Or as I saw in one place, it said something like, be your own hero. Right.
- [03:27]
Alisa Childers
Well, that. There's a quote actually from the Rachel Hollis book girl, wash your face that I reviewed and it says in that book you should be the hero of your own story.
- [03:35]
Greg Koukl
Yeah. So this is interesting though, because what is a hero? A hero is someone we look up to because of some virtue that we want to accomplish. We are drawn to this because these people are above and beyond the standard. Okay? But what this line does is it says, we are the end. All this is as high as it gets. And it's not even high or low because there's no reference point. It's just me. It's like you do you. It's like two pronouns and a verb, and it's all self reflective. So there's nothing there but us. And people don't think about it that way. They think this means freedom and this means authenticity, as if these are noble things. And I don't think Oprah thought about this. But what if the person's truth is racism? What if the person's truth is child molestation? Now, obviously she wouldn't approve of that, but it shows the limitations of these kinds of slogans that trade so well in the culture. People want to be relativists. They don't want somebody telling them what to do, but they don't want anybody to be a relativist regarding them.
- [04:54]
Alisa Childers
Right. And it's interesting, this whole idea of where this idea of live your truth came from, because obviously we're going to talk about postmodernism, we're going to talk about, we're going to define some terms, talk about the nature of truth. But I think a lot of times when people say, speak your truth or live your truth, there's a genuine impulse toward truth. And what I mean by that is often we see this even in spaces where maybe somebody has encountered some abuse and they're told, well, you need to speak your truth. But the problem with relativizing truth is that even for the victim of abuse, for them to speak, you want them to speak the truth about what happened to them so that light can be shined on it, abusers can be dealt with, that the whole thing can Be resolved, healing can begin. But in a way, culture has tried to empower people to speak your truth or live your truth, even in that area. But by relativizing it to the self, then it sort of lowers what they're actually saying, because we're wanting people to say what's actually true about reality. And if that's true in reality, it's not your truth, it's the truth, right?
- [06:02]
Greg Koukl
That's right. It's obviously a tragic event when something like that happens to a person. And there is a legitimate power, I think, that befalls somebody who is willing to acknowledge what happened and call it what it was, evil, for example. And this kind of sometimes helps people to deal with it. They're facing the problem, They're. They're acknowledging it and maybe getting help from others, sympathy from them or whatever. All this is good, and it's all completely consistent with Christianity. But notice the word I used there. The word was evil. Okay? But this word only makes sense in light of a larger standard. Okay, what happened to you should not have happened. It is not the way the world's supposed to be. Okay? But you can't have a way. The world's not supposed to be evil and these things, unless there is a way the world is supposed to be. That's the only way one can make any real sense about the genuine moral tragedy of what happened to a person in a circumstance like that. But if there is no way that the world is actually supposed to be, then there is no moral tragedy there. What happened was something that made you feel uncomfortable or feel bad or feel pain. But we have to be careful. If that's our worldview of not attaching moral qualities to that. Like it's wrong to feel bad. It's wrong when you are made to feel bad. It is wrong when you are made to feel pain. But it's natural for us to do that. Why is it natural for us to do that? And here I'm going to refer to Francis Schaeffer, who is a great hero of mine. I actually got a chance to meet him. He died in the 80s, but he wrote some marvelous books that really shaped. Shaped my understanding of the world as a Christian and how some of these things work. And what he said is that, as a matter of fact, we do live in God's world. God exists. He made the world, and we are made in the image of God. And so therefore, human beings are going to. If they're not thinking about guarding philosophical turf, they are going to end up speaking truths that they don't realize they're speaking, they're going to acknowledge the way the world is. And so when we say things like that was evil, we say that even if we say we're relativists and there is no truth of good or evil, ultimately there are just different feelings. But we can't help ourself. I call this the inside out tactic in the tactics book. And that is because God has built something inside of each of us that is true about the way the world is. That we have a moral understanding of a fallen world. That's reality. And so when we're not guarding ourselves, we speak the truth in that regard. But the problem here is it doesn't fit in the live your truth worldview, okay? Because that certain things are right and wrong and evil and virtuous. That's part of a worldview that most people, many people don't say they ascribe to. So what are you going to make then of these kinds of tragedies? If you are a relativist of some sort of especially kind of the postmodern style where truth is just a matter of the cultural narrative and all of that, well, then what do you make of the problem of evil? There can't be a problem of evil on that view. But everybody knows something's wrong with the world. So the best that they can do is live a deeply confused life, certainly not a flourishing life the way God wanted us.
- [09:50]
Alisa Childers
I've often heard this metaphor. I didn't think of this, but it makes good sense in this type of conversation. When you think about being lost in the woods at night and it's cloudy sky, so you can't see any stars, you have no point of reference to know where you are. And what do you need in that circumstance. You need a compass to be able to be a reference point, to point you where you need to go. But if your own heart, your own feelings is your compass, right? I mean, you might land toward where you're supposed to go, but chances are you're going to end up somewhere completely different.
- [10:23]
Greg Koukl
Actually, there's more to this metaphor than you realize realize because you cannot orienteer with a compass. You have to have a map with the compass.
- [10:32]
Alisa Childers
There you go.
- [10:33]
Greg Koukl
And then you orient the map to the land, and then you use your compass to navigate the land in virtue of the characterization of the land that you see on the map. And if the map's not accurate, even if you got a compass, you're not going to end up in the right place. And so there is this Valuable thing, this compass that we have. If we're talking about morality, it's this sense of right and wrong. But also we need to have a standard to help us use that compass. Now, we understand, and this is, I was referring to a few moments ago, Elisa, that being made in the image of God gives us an internal compass of sorts. And so this is why we're talking in terms of right and wrong. Francis Schaeffer called this moral motions. We have the capability of acting or talking in ways that embraces the notion of morality. But we have more than that. We have a map, the word of God, to give us more detail about the. We might have a sense of north and south. And I think there's a river over there that raids and there's the sun. I think it's over that way. And so kind of using a dead reckoning kind of manner, you can get out of the woods to the river and maybe to the city and get out. But of course, if you have a precise characterization of the land, you can go past it. And so Scripture talks about our ability to operate in these categories and have some common sense notions of right and wrong, but a lot of times they go south on us, especially when our feelings, our hearts, the way we use the term heart. Bible uses the term in a little different way. But we mean our emotions and our desires and our appetites. A lot of times the heart that we talk about isn't just our feelings, it's just our base appetites, especially sexual. Okay. And so this is why a whole bunch of people, their identity is centered on their sexual appetite. That's what it is. That's where the mind is.
- [12:41]
Alisa Childers
That's where we've come as a culture.
- [12:43]
Greg Koukl
And I'm not disparaging those people, but I'm just making an observation. Okay. And when you think of it that way, yeah, their identity is centered on their sexual appetites or any other appetite. Well, that sounds a little bit weird. But in any event, when our appetites overwhelm what probably is our moral common sense. Now we're getting lost in the woods here to go back to our metaphor, because now something else is guiding us that in many cases is not tied to human flourishing reality, which is what God wants and what God tells us about. But now it's tied to our personal self, desire or appetite. And I won't even say fleshly appetites, because that has a negative connotation. I don't mean it necessarily in the fallen sense. I mean it just in our carnal or physical appetites. You know, and then this is very easy to take us off a sound course, all right? And then we do everything we can to find rationales or language or even abuse of detractors to justify where we're at and to appear to sanitize what we're doing when all, all we are doing is pursuing naked self interest, okay? And this is where we end up going. We get off the track and bad things happen. When human beings operate in a way that they were not designed to operate. I'm using these words advisedly then. And by the way, you don't even have to bring God into it. If you want, you can just say nature, design, but there is a design. Things are made for certain purposes, you know, Then if we use those in ways that they were not intended to be used, bad things happen, you know, it's the consequence of living out of kilter with the nature of reality. Now, of course, as followers of Christ, as Christians Christian worldview, we can make sense of why the world is the way people discover it to be. We can make sense of that. God turns out to be the best explanation for all of this stuff, okay? But so many things that are moral and ethical issues that are consistent with the Christian worldview, you don't need a Bible to figure this out. All you have to do is be a fairly attentive observer of reality and what ends up in the longer term hurting or injuring human beings. That's all you got to do to, to realize, like the smart path. And of course it's really convenient in a certain sense that the smart path coincides with what God says about the world. But it's not just convenient, it's like that on purpose because God made that world and so it's going to fit the way he describes the world to be.
- [15:46]
Alisa Childers
Why do you think that smart path has come so out of fashion?
- [15:51]
Greg Koukl
Well, in a certain sense, it's not just today, it's always been out of fashion, you know, but even thinking in
- [15:58]
Alisa Childers
terms of what might be objectively true in the world or what might be objectively good or evil, it seems like there's an accelerated rejection of that.
- [16:09]
Greg Koukl
There is. And you know, at different times in history, you know, we go through these patterns. So I was born in 1950, in the 50s and early 60s. I thought there was a lot of common sensibility. We had our problems, whatever, but there was more of a common sensibility about living that seemed to dovetail with the Christian worldview. Then in the 60s, things began to change and we sowed to the wind. And now we're reaping the whirlwind. So in the perspective of our biographies, we just see this acceleration. But that kind of thing has happened in the past and even the distant past. You know, things got really crazy and then it settled down more, and then it got really crazy again. We're watching it get really crazy. And I think the pattern here goes all the way back to Genesis, chapter three. I wrote something last year that. Just an observation that came to me and I thought how this works. And what I said was, human beings are going to be ruled by one of two forces. They're either going to be ruled by truth or by power. Okay, by truth or by power. You know, there was a slogan on the left that was popular years ago. You don't hear it so much anymore because things have shifted. But it was speaking truth to power. There you go. Speaking truth to power. Now, of course, the left doesn't believe in truth anymore and they are in power. Okay, so things have changed dramatically, but notice the dichotomy there. Either you're gonna live by the way things actually are. And so when I use the word truth here, I'm using in a very precise way, and I'm not using it as a synonym for belief. Right?
- [17:50]
Alisa Childers
That's an important distinction.
- [17:51]
Greg Koukl
Yes, it is. Live your truth. That means live your beliefs. They're not their beliefs, they're your beliefs. They're unique. Well, that truth doesn't mean belief because believing something can't make it true.
- [18:02]
Alisa Childers
Right?
- [18:02]
Greg Koukl
Or there wouldn't be any difference between reality and fantasy classically. And when I say classically, I mean the ordinary garden variety definition of the word truth is that your understanding of the way things are are in fact, the way things are. Okay, so a synonym would be fact. Okay, so is it true? Is just another way of asking, is it a fact? All right? And so this is one thing that's helped what's happened in the culture since the way you asked the question is that we have largely abandoned our commitment to what is true in areas that are inconvenient for us right now. What we can't say is, well, I don't like that, so I'm not going to do that. I mean, people do say that. Instead, this is the sanitizing. We're just going to blanket say there is none of that truth stuff, so you can't lay your truth on me. Okay, But I don't know if you caught this. In my words, there is none of that truth stuff, so you can't which means you're not supposed to lay your truth on your own.
- [19:18]
Alisa Childers
It's a moral claim, an objective claim, of course.
- [19:20]
Greg Koukl
So it's like saying there are no objective moral claims, There is no truth. Here's one exactly right in the same sentence.
- [19:28]
Alisa Childers
It's all the time, social media. That's social media in a nutshell.
- [19:31]
Greg Koukl
Absolutely thick with it. And so this is why I say that human beings are really common sense moral realists deep down inside because that's the way God made them. But when it comes to their projects, they want to play the relativism card. Okay, but like I said before, they don't want to play have you play the relativism card against them, you know, So I remember this conversation. Let me just think. The talk show host that followed, Larry King, the British guy, I can never remember his name. He was on for a while, for a couple of years. Very, very left of center. I can't remember his name, but he replaced Larry King. Okay. And then he was interviewing some Christian and the issue of homosexuality came up and he's always beating this drum and.
- [20:19]
Alisa Childers
Oh, is it Piers Morgan?
- [20:20]
Greg Koukl
Piers Morgan, right. Yeah, Pierce Morgan. I thought he was excellent host, but I thought he was kind of a rat too, you know, he was a very good. He was much better than the person who preceded him as a host, in my view. So it was interesting to listen to him. But man, he had a drumbeat about homosexuality. So you get a Christian out there and he's. He's going to hang you out to dry. You know, he did that to Kirk Cameron, for example, when Kirk was on that show. And so. And Kirk was fabulous. He's a wonderful guy and he lives near me and we get together on occasion, but he's the true blue, right? So he handled himself really well. But the comment from Piers Morgan was. Who are you to say? Who are you to say? Of course, now what he's doing is playing the relativism card, but that can be played back at him, too.
- [21:06]
Alisa Childers
Who are you say. Who are you to say what I.
- [21:08]
Greg Koukl
Exactly. Right. Bingo. Who are you to say? Who are you to say? So you're complaining because I'm making a judgment. You're making a judgment back on me. And Jordan Peterson actually played this card once in a famous interview or two. It went viral. Yeah. But he was on his toes. And when he played it back in, his host, this woman was completely flummoxed. She couldn't talk after he did that. And he's ready to go on, and she doesn't know what to do. And then he says, in this very difficult moment for her, he says, gotcha. And he actually didn't need to do that because everybody knows she'd been had and so he didn't need to underscore it. But nevertheless, that's the kind of thing we're talking about here. These are the non judgment crowd that are completely judgmental. These are the non bullying crowd that bully everyone viciously who isn't just like them. So what this amounts to is a deeply confused community of people, a deeply confused way of living. And what we're trying to offer is a way of understanding the world that is coherent and that fits together, that matches reality. But guess what? It does entail certain kinds of judgments and you can't avoid it. What we're trying to do, as Jesus said, is judge properly, not just have a condescending judgment like he spoke against in Matthew chapter seven, where he says, judge not lest you be judged. Well, he didn't stop there, he kept going and he qualified it. You know, this is a kind of a condescending thing. The log is in your eye and you're picking at the speck on somebody else's eyes.
- [23:00]
Alisa Childers
Don't judge hypocritically.
- [23:01]
Greg Koukl
Yes, don't judge hypocritically. But we are to assess, don't participate in the evil deeds of darkness, Paul said, but even expose them, right? So there is a role of appropriate judgment in the Christian's life. And so if we're going to invite people to participate in reality, that is the characterization of the world that the Christian worldview provides. It fits because it's accurate. That means they are under a God. They are not God, they are under a God. And the kingdom of God is the rulership of God. And so when John the Baptist and Jesus, the apostles, whatever, preach the kingdom, they're beckoning people back underneath the rulership of God, the appropriate role of God in their lives as a sovereign and all the other good things that go along with it. A life of human flourishing. So when we're communicating to the rest of the world our view, we're not just saying don't do those things. That's bad, you're going to get weapon for that kind of thing. We're beckoning them back to a lifestyle of wholeness and goodness. Think of Bruce Jenner. I mean, Bruce Jenner is a broken human being and he will be broken for the rest of his life because his mind tells him one thing and his body tells him something else. And that will always Be in conflict. God didn't make Bruce that way. That's brokenness. That should. Should be healed, could be healed. We're inviting those kinds of people back to a world under God where that kind of thing can be healed.
- [24:43]
Alisa Childers
Isn't that an amazing story? It's good news, right? This is why we call it the good news. But, you know, I've observed this, too. It's interesting that to us, it's like, this is the best news ever. Your brokenness can be made whole. You can bring yourself in alignment with your actual creator. How amazing is that? But that's only going to be good news for people who recognize that they're sinners. And you can only recognize that you're a sinner if objective truth exists in specifically objective morality, if something can be objectively good or objectively sinful.
- [25:17]
Greg Koukl
So you see the move here. I mean, if you stand back and think strategically about how these things happen. And this is Ephesians 6 stuff. So Paul warns us that there is a battle going on that's in heavenly places, spiritual powers, and there are schemes in play. All right? That's the language he uses. Now, I'm not the kind of, you know, me. I'm not the kind of guy who's going to find a demon under every bush, but there is a genuine spiritual battle. And if you want to dissuade people from repenting from sin, you tell them there is no such thing. So therefore, there's nothing to repent from. Or even worse, not only is there no such thing as sin, but the summum bonum, the greatest good, is to be authentic.
- [26:06]
Alisa Childers
Right?
- [26:06]
Greg Koukl
And authenticity is whatever is inside. And you want that to come out.
- [26:11]
Alisa Childers
And if you think you're inherently good, why would that be? That would be great. You want to let that out, right? Let that goodness out.
- [26:17]
Greg Koukl
I heard a line, though, the other day here at CIA, and I can't remember who said it, but he said the only ones that are in the. Everybody's out of the closet. The only ones that are in the closet right now are Christians.
- [26:29]
Alisa Childers
Christians? Yeah. It was Bobby. Bobby said that?
- [26:31]
Greg Koukl
Yeah. And they're in the closet because they're being bullied by the rest of the culture. Bullied into silence or even punished into silence because they get canceled, you know? And, I mean, you and I have YouTube friends that just demonetize. This is their livelihood.
- [26:50]
Alisa Childers
I've been demonetized.
- [26:51]
Greg Koukl
Oh, well. So there you go. I didn't know that about you.
- [26:53]
Alisa Childers
Yeah, over two topics. The abortion topic and the sexuality topic.
- [26:58]
Greg Koukl
Yeah. See, okay, you don't have a voice now. You have no place at the table. Okay? This is the tolerance crowd, right?
- [27:05]
Alisa Childers
Right.
- [27:05]
Greg Koukl
This is the people who are open to all these. Live your truth. Where is Oprah when you need her?
- [27:11]
Alisa Childers
I know, right?
- [27:12]
Greg Koukl
And so, but no, there's no tolerance. Tolerance is a one way street. They are tolerant of everybody who thinks exactly like them. So by the way, notice my equation. We're kind of come back to that now. So the equation is you either, it's either truth or power. Okay? There's no place for truth because you determine truth by people of good intention and charitable attitude hammering things out to try to figure out what's truth. But you don't say the right things, so you're silenced, you know, like that. And so what is being used now? It isn't the effect or the, the I don't want to say power of truth because I'm going to use power in a minute, but it's the influence of truth, the role of truth in our discussion that isn't the thing that makes it now. It's just the raw power to silence opposition.
- [28:05]
Alisa Childers
That's right. Yeah.
- [28:06]
Greg Koukl
That's what we see.
- [28:06]
Alisa Childers
Truth or power. Just like you said.
- [28:08]
Greg Koukl
That's right.
- [28:08]
Alisa Childers
You know, I remember years ago, this is probably at least 15 years ago, maybe 10 to 15 years ago. I remember the first time I heard about postmodernism. The first time I heard about it, the person I heard about it from was presenting it as a positive correction that the church needs. I remember being at a state in my faith where I had a lot of emotional difficulty at that time. And I had toured a lot as a Christian artist. So I had observed different churches and honestly I'd observed some things. I had critiques for maybe some hypocrisy, kind of the rise of the celebrity pastor thing that was sort of rubbing me wrong by the time I came off the road.
- [28:54]
Greg Koukl
So speaks the celebrity performer. Yeah, I understand. Well, you're on the inside. So you see the liabilities.
- [29:00]
Alisa Childers
Yeah, yeah, especially. And I think especially in a church setting, it's just gotten special complications.
- [29:06]
Greg Koukl
Right, right. Got you.
- [29:08]
Alisa Childers
So I had some critiques for the church. Right. And so I remember talking about those critiques of maybe evangelical culture that I had with other people. And I remember this person said to me, you know, and this actually isn't anyone I wrote about in my book. So in my book I talk about this. This was a different scenario. And this person had said, well, you know, there's this, this new thing that's coming around that's really correcting it's new kind of Christianity. And it's. It's a much needed post modern correction to some of the overly rationalistic and, you know, reasoned beliefs that are. That are just so heavily leaning on your mind and logic and reason and all these things. And it's really what the church needs to correct all that stuff. And at the time, I didn't know what that was. And I thought, well, that feels right. That's my first mistake. Right? That feels great. That feels really good. And then I began to see all of my friends who were embracing that philosophy start falling away from the faith. And I couldn't understand it because we had started out in the same place. We saw some of the same abuses or maybe some of the same problems that we were critiquing and had some corrections for, but they were willing to throw the entire gospel out with it for this new kind of Christianity. And so it was really interesting. Which was the title of a book, right?
- [30:24]
Greg Koukl
That championed.
- [30:25]
Alisa Childers
Certainly was, yes. And so I remember just thinking, when I got into apologetics, postmodernism was really presented as such a negative thing, like, we've got to answer postmodernism. But the first time I heard about it, it was presented like, we need to bring this into the church. So I'm wondering if you remember back maybe 10 or so years ago, when some of those early emergent writings were that far back, like Brian McLaren and Tony Jones and some of these guys started writing.
- [30:50]
Greg Koukl
Dan Kimball wrote also.
- [30:51]
Alisa Childers
That's right.
- [30:51]
Greg Koukl
So Dan, just for the record, Dan's a great guy. I've known Dan a long time. He's a Dan Lorisa guy, but he was with that group and he saw maybe the potential. There was a rising secular movement started in architecture called postmodernism, then it got into everywhere else. Okay. And this was a new twist on there is no truth in the sense that we used to think of it. All right, so this is not anything new. This is relativism with a little bit of new trendy face to it. And there's a little bit of nuance in terms of how they characterize the truth project. And it has to do with language and communities, linguistic communities and stuff like that. But nevertheless, it lands kind of on the same place. And since this was a development in the culture, there were some who saw, well, there's some value to this for the church. But then instead of being aware of the liabilities and critiquing the bad parts, there was a wholesale embrace. And this is where Dan Kimball says, I'm not going for that.
- [31:59]
Alisa Childers
And others too, others said the same thing. That's why that movement kind of split early on.
- [32:03]
Greg Koukl
Well, it didn't go away, as you know, it just went underground and came up with a new name, which you've been addressing obviously with the progressive Christianity. But I bring it down because here's a guy who cared about the church and he was looking about different ways to communicate with the emerging culture. But instead, unlike the others who adopted the ideas, he was trying to address the ideas and be sensitive to those ideas, make changes in the church as necessary to adjust to that new cultural thing. And just like the Jesus movement did, you know, decades before where I became a Christian, your dad was such an important part of, for example, that was an appropriate corrective in some ways. But if you by the whole system at 86 is Christianity, that would mean it's Christianity's done with, you know, takes the foundation. Dan saw this and so he backed off of that and then began critiquing this. So he didn't follow his buddies in this thing. And he's been a true blue ever since. Obviously he continues to write books that are addressing these things. But yes, this trend really, it was appealing to a lot of people, but it's an anti realist view. And what I mean by that is it's this postmodern view essentially says you can't really know what's real. All you can know is what your community, okay, has socialized you to know through linguistic influence. All right? And so now, yes, that whole thing has faded as a thing. There's still postmodernists around. They don't call it that anymore. Now the influence of that is expressed in different ways. It was interesting when Brian McLaren first came out with a new kind of Christian, he was probably the most well known proponent of postmodern Christianity. The emergent village was their enclave, you know, with Doug Padgett and the others that when he first came out with that, oh, I'm trying to remember the point I was going to make here with this. But it was very, very popular. And when I saw how he was applying those principles, I thought, well, this is just old fashioned liberalism. Yeah, yeah, it's not any different than liberalism. Now he lands on the liberalism square from a different path. Right, the postmodern path, not the classic liberal path, but they end up at the same place. Okay. And now they got new vocabulary. Now they went underground, they come up as the progressive church, but it all the same kind of Thing. So these basic things that we see happening are not new theologically. And the essence of it goes all the way back to Genesis, chapter three.
- [35:02]
Alisa Childers
Sure does.
- [35:03]
Greg Koukl
So think about what happened in Genesis three. And so here I'm going to do my truth power kind of thing. All right? Because what God did in the garden is he gave Adam and Eve a way to live that was true to the way the world was as he made it. Okay. So there were physical realities, truths, and there were moral truths as well. Don't eat from this tree. Okay. And what does the text say? It says that Eve talking about her process there before Adam got involved, she looked on it, she saw that it was good for food, it was good to make her wise, and all these other lies, but it just. It all appealed to her appetites. It appealed to everything on the inside. She wasn't thinking about the obligations on the outside. Now, this inside, outside distinction just is the difference between relativistic truth, subjective truth,
- [36:11]
Alisa Childers
based on the subject.
- [36:13]
Greg Koukl
Exactly. Inside, live your truth, and outside, which is the way reality is structured. God's world, not just the physical world. And that's where gender would fit in, Male and female. He created them. God made human beings to be binary in their sexuality. Why? Because that's how they are. Fruitful and multiply. No, duh. Right? No. So just like then, people now are saying no to God's world and no to his commands. So no to physical reality and no to moral reality and saying yes to whatever's inside, that's the subjective objective. That's relativistic thinking or objectivistic truth. This is live your truth. This is. I'm trying to think of the. I can't think of a nice slogan because live your truth sounds. Live the truth. There you go. Thank you. Live the truth because the truth is what is ultimately going to prevail. Not your truth. Yeah, it's reality that is going to define our lives, not just our passions or appetites.
- [37:28]
Alisa Childers
At the moment, as I've studied the deconstruction movement, I've made observations that it really reflects everything you're talking about. It's ultimately at the bottom of the thing is a rejection of absolute truth. And I've had people come into the comments on my blog posts and articulate it to where they're saying, hey, no, we're not. We're not rejecting the idea that objective truth exists. Okay, maybe it does. But what they're rejecting is the idea that anybody can actually know what it is when it comes to things like religion and Especially morality, like moral obligations. And so it seems to me what, what emerges as I think about postmodernism, which I think has really influenced the deconstruction movement quite a bit through some postmodern philosophies coming from the 60s. But it's all about authority. For what you think is true, is your, is your authority the Bible, or is your authority yourself? And ultimately every deconstruction story that I've listened to, everything that I've read from deconstructionists, although they may not put it in words just like this, but my observation is that what it really comes down to is that deconstruction as a phenomenon, as we see it, is really a rejection of objective truth. And it's marked by a real hyper skepticism toward any sort of truth claims in the realm of religion and morality. So in what I've observed is if you, you know, I'm going to try to put myself in the mindset, you know, if I, if I think that objective truth cannot be known about morality, about spirituality, then when Christians come along and start making all these objective truth claims, like Jesus is the only way to God, Hell is a real place, you must be saved, you are a sinner. I mean, these are difficult truth claims, right? But if my core fundamental belief is that objective truth on those topics can't actually be known, then I'm going to be extremely suspicious of the Christians coming around claiming to know what those truths are.
- [39:27]
Greg Koukl
The irony, though, about that is they are not neutral regarding these ideas, right? Whether they are theological, strictly theological, like hell, for example, or they are moral. They are not neutral about these things because they make moral assessments all the time and they make theological ones. No, there is no hell. You think there's a hell? There isn't, right?
- [39:51]
Alisa Childers
I mean, they will declare that as an absolute truth on TikTok, but it's
- [39:57]
Greg Koukl
also, but it's also tied to a moral claim because they think if, you know, if there is a God, and maybe some progressive Christians, I don't know, but I suspect they're theistic very broadly and very. Yeah, in a very general sense. But if he is good and he's loving and so he would not create a place like hell, well, notice that you're making a moral claim there. You're talking about the moral quality of God. So you're saying you do seem to know something religious and you do seem to know something moral. All right, so let's stop this little game that we're playing about you can't know religious truth. You can't know moral truth because you keep proclaiming both of them in our discussion. Excuse me, in our discussion. So the real question is, does anybody have a right claim to the claim? In other words, do they have justification for holding what they do? And just a little observation here. It's a historical quirk. Postmodernism is post modernism, okay? Modernism is kind of an enlightenment sensibilities, okay? So reason rules, man is the center, so to speak. It's. And. And he's the man. Humans are the measure of all things, and. And reason is the way you find truth. You have the scientific method and all that other stuff. But of course, if reason is the way you find truth, this is the thinking of postmoderns. Look at all the bad things that came from. We had imperialism, we have oppression, we have racism, we have. Why do we have that? Because some people thought they were right and other people were wrong. And when you think you're right and other people are wrong, then you abuse your power against other people. Then you have victims, and then you have victim classes and you have critical race theory and equity.
- [41:47]
Alisa Childers
I always get diversity, equity, inclusion.
- [41:49]
Greg Koukl
There you go. Because I know it's like EID is a bomb and die is dead. So it's the other one.
- [41:54]
Alisa Childers
Letters. It's some letters.
- [41:55]
Greg Koukl
Yeah, right, the Alphabet soup thing. But. And so, but you. You get those circumstances that people are now complaining about. So how do we correct. That is the idea. We become postmodern and we quit making these kinds of objectivist, absolute assertions about the nature of reality, and then we'll all get around, get along. But the. Frankly, what has happened, and this is not a secret at all, is what is the power base has just shifted.
- [42:24]
Alisa Childers
That's right.
- [42:25]
Greg Koukl
That's all it is. And the political left, now there's not a secret, is just, well, arguably even more abusive than they used to be. Because there was a certain sense in which the Enlightenment and Christianity had a kinship, and that was, at least in the life of the mind. We have a functioning mind that could discover what truths were. There was a disagreement on what the truth is actually were, but at least there was an epistemology. We'll say, how do we know what we know that we shared? Okay, but when postmoderns came along, they just said they abandoned that epistemology. Okay, so you can't know anything that's true. So what's left now? There is no truth left, just power. That's all that's left. And we see it everywhere we turn. The exercise of. Of power in the face, in the teeth of evidence, on issues to the contrary.
- [43:25]
Alisa Childers
And what's so fascinating to me about that is that in culture at large, there is this sense in which truth claims made from maybe a Christian perspective are viewed as power grabs. And I wonder if that power is threatened. So it's like, well, if, you know, sometimes if you have a motivation, you kind of think everybody else does.
- [43:45]
Greg Koukl
Yeah, yeah, that's a projection.
- [43:47]
Alisa Childers
Projection. I wonder if there's some of that going on, because it's. I notice that every time when. When I'm posting about maybe things that have to do with the nature of objective truth, somebody will come on and start psychoanalyzing what I. What kind of power I'm trying to. To get a hold of, or what institution am I protecting or trying to prop up or who am I trying to control? And I'm thinking, like, why. Why does that even occur to you? I'm just making a claim about what reflects reality.
- [44:14]
Greg Koukl
There's some projection going on, but there's something else going on too, because notice that when you are raising an issue, maybe an ethical issue or something like that, in your conversation or theological, in the people who are objecting, they change the subject. They change the subject instead of addressing the issue and trying to deal with the issue and say, elise, I get where you're coming from. I understand your thing, but I think you're mistaken. Here's the reason why, okay? So it's not made the best idea win. They ignore whatever case you were making. And they do one of two things, both which are informal fallacies. One, they go after you, you know, Jezebel. Yeah, I know you've been called that, you know I have. Yeah. So I just read about Jezebel last night. Oh, tossed from the thing, the dog's eater and all that. She was nasty. You're not nasty. But what they're trying to do is associate her nastiness with you by calling you a name. Okay, that's just a character assassination or whatever, you know, but they're doing something else too. And it's an. So that's an ad hominem for the homeschool people. They understand how that works. Or the apologetics nerds, however. But it's a fallacy. It's a distraction from the real issue. But they're doing something else too. And they're saying, I. I know your motives for doing this. Okay? I know your motives. This is the power grab. Notice they're changing the subject again in a different way. They're not dealing with the issue. Now, it seems to me if they've got a really good case, why don't they state it instead of attacking your character or saying something else is going on with her that's motivating her to do this, that dastardly thing, without identifying it as, in fact a dastardly thing. C.S. lewis put it this way. He said, first, you have to show that a person is mistaken before it's reasonable to ask why they're mistaken. They're just saying, here's why you're mistaken. This is a power grab. But they've never shown you that you're mistaken. And I know you. You're offering principled points, whether theological or moral or a combination of the two, regarding how people are understanding God or how they're living their lives inconsistent with what God wants. Okay, that's controversial. Fine. What do you think the reasons are? That I'm wrong and you're right. Let's just knock that around. But when you start calling me names, you know you're a Jezebel. Well, you're ugly. No, I wouldn't say that. But the point I'm making is, how is it different?
- [46:49]
Alisa Childers
I'm rubber, you're glue.
- [46:51]
Greg Koukl
There you go. Right, Right. It's like. Yeah, right. It's the. It's. You got that from your kids, probably, or something. I don't know.
- [46:58]
Alisa Childers
I think we said that when we were kids.
- [46:59]
Greg Koukl
Oh, is that right?
- [47:00]
Alisa Childers
Or whatever you say, bouncing, bouncing back.
- [47:03]
Greg Koukl
All your other fingers are pointing back at you. You know that one? That's right. So, yeah. So there, there. There is a. It's. It's just. It turns out, it's funny, we're talking about kids, because children. Because that's the kind of behavior we're seeing. Childish behavior here, because it's the only thing they have to resort to, call names, you know, commit other fallacies or whatever. And by the way, I would never tell anybody they're ugly, even if they were, because ugly people can be. Right.
- [47:31]
Alisa Childers
That's right.
- [47:32]
Greg Koukl
Right.
- [47:32]
Alisa Childers
Truth doesn't care what you look like, what you believe, how old you are, and also people how much of a jerk you are.
- [47:37]
Greg Koukl
That's right. Also people with illicit motives and people who have bad character. Bigot. They could be right, too.
- [47:44]
Alisa Childers
Yeah.
- [47:44]
Greg Koukl
Those things are not related. Okay? They're distractions. Now, as Christians, we don't want to be any of those bad things. And if we are, shame on us. But we're getting shamed. Not because we're those things, but because we have ideas people don't like, and this is the best way. They have to get at us and make us look bad rather than dealing with the issue.
- [48:03]
Alisa Childers
Well, as we close out here today, we were talking before we went on the air about what a chaotic time this is, especially for people who are really wired for truth. I was just talking with somebody, I think it was yesterday, where they. They know someone who's just gone really reclusive because they just don't know how to cope with this abandonment of truth. And everything is so chaotic is really the word. So I wonder, you know what? You. You have so much wisdom. I've just loved this conversation, you know.
- [48:31]
Greg Koukl
Thank you.
- [48:32]
Alisa Childers
Yeah, we should call it like Fireside with Greg. You know, just if there was a fireplace here, just glean from your wisdom. But what wisdom would you leave anybody who might be listening to this or watching this, who's feeling really overwhelmed with the. With just this onslaught of chaos coming from relativism?
- [48:50]
Greg Koukl
Well, I'm flattered by your comments. I actually don't feel very wise in this circumstance because I identify with people who are experiencing that sense of being overwhelmed with everything. All right. And more and more, what I'm thinking now is not so much in terms of how can I think of persuasive ways to engage culture to get them thinking. I mean, it's a lot of what we do at Stand to Reason, the tactics book is there. I'm writing another book right now called Street Smarts. That's kind of an offshoot of tactics to help people maneuver more in these difficult times. But a big part of what I'm thinking now, and as I get older, this is more and more, I don't know, relevant to me. It's always been relevant, but it's more central to me. We have an audience of one to please.
- [49:42]
Alisa Childers
That's right.
- [49:44]
Greg Koukl
Not everybody else in the world. And it may turn out that whatever we say, how graciously or thoughtfully we put it, people are just gonna spit in our face, whether metaphorically or actually. And. Okay, so then the important thing is the audience of one being faithful, standing firm. I think of Martin Luther. Here I stand, I can do no other. And many others in history that are unsung heroes of the faith who did that a couple years ago, all of these dear Christian men who are beheaded on the beach there in the Middle east by Muslims, and all they had to do was recant. And we had some. One of our speakers had some association with that group when he went to the Middle east and was doing some teaching with the families Indirectly with the families. And he learned that the parents, the families were praying for the lives of their sons and their husbands and their brothers until they realized that the only way they would survive is if they recanted. And then they were praying that they wouldn't recant, which is essentially sealing their death in their prayer, which is what happened. They didn't recant, but that was the price that they paid. And I don't think we're going to pay that price here, frankly. However, you never know. We're paying a much steeper price than we ever used to pay. But I want you to think, Elisa, and also for your viewers, I want you to think about this passage. It's easy to remember. Gospel of Mark, chapter 15, verse 15. So it's Mark 15:15. Okay, now here's where Jesus is. It's the end of the Gospel. So it's at the end of Passion. He's actually with Pilate being tried by Pilot. And Pilate doesn't want to convict him because he knows he's innocent. And he knows the Jews are, you know, they're all worked up because they. They're envious about Jesus and whatever. And his wife has been telling him, leave this Jesus guy alone, you know, but he doesn't know how to get out of this. So he offers the release of one of the prisoners. And Barabbas is an option. And Jesus is an option. And he's thinking, well, maybe they'll go for Jesus. No. Pharisees worked up the crowd to ask for Barabbas, and that's who they ask for. And then he says, what do I do with Jesus? And they said, crucify him. And here's verse 15 of chapter 15 of Mark. Wishing to please the crowd, wishing to please the crowd. He released Barabbas, had Jesus scourged and crucified. And I never want to be on Pilate's side. But so much of Christendom seems to be going that direction that they are siding with the villain or the villains, as the case may be. And they are turning they're back on the Savior. When I die, I want to hear these words, well done, good and faithful servant. I do not want to be the one who, wishing to please the crowd, betrayed my Savior. I want to be the one who hears from the only one who matters. Well done. And so my encouragement to Christians or, you know, get your apologetics squared away, get your theology squared away, get your understanding of why the Bible teaches these things, you can rely on, do everything you can. But when the. When Push comes to shove, your attitude is, here I stand, I can do no other.
- [53:17]
Alisa Childers
Yeah, well, that's a great place to end. Thank you for being with us today.
- [53:22]
Greg Koukl
It's been a real pleasure, as always, Elisa.
- [53:25]
Alisa Childers
Well, Please go to str.org to learn more about Greg and his ministry. Great blog post up there. Great videos. I recommend to just about everybody. When I go speak at conferences or anywhere I go, I say, you got to read Greg Kokel's book Tactics. Every Christian should read the book Tactics. Also the book the Story of Reality. It's a very easy to understand sort of systematic theology in story form. I've read it to my children. It's an amazing book. Of course, Relativism. Feet planted firmly in thin air. Is that it?
- [53:57]
Greg Koukl
Feet firmly planted in midair. There you go.
- [53:59]
Alisa Childers
Yeah, check that out, because that's, that's really where so much of this chaos that we're seeing in our world is really rooted in relativism. So check that out. And don't forget, if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe, click the bell icon to be notified every time we release a new video. If you're listening on any audio platform, please leave a positive review. 5 stars on iTunes is so helpful to get the algorithms going to get this out to more people to signify those platforms, like, hey, this is. People are interested in this. This is something we're going to suggest to people. So with that, we'll see you next time. And thanks so much for watching.