Day Off Thoughts: Does Absolute Truth Exist?

There is no sermon to post today, as I have the day "off." I visited a church I had never been to -- Covenant Presbyterian (PCA) in Short Hills, NJ -- and I was thrilled to find them a biblical and Bible-teaching church. This evening, I will attend (D.V.) Emmanuel OPC in Whippany, NJ -- an evening worship standard for me.

Due to two conversations I had recently, and one I had years ago, I am wondering how many ordained ministers and professing Christians believe in Absolute Truth -- escpecially with regards to the Scripture. With the emergence of the emergent church movement, it would seem to be few.

Consider: a number of years ago, I was speaking with an ordained minister of a reformed church, and he told me that he had decided (well, actually, that the Holy Spirit told him) to only preach from the four Gospels, because Jesus said that we are to preach the Gospel, and those are the four that are gospels.

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a seminary graduate, who is seeking ordination, and this person said that this person preached almost exclusively from the four Gospels for two reasons: (1) the epistles don't make any sense to this person and (2) didactic teaching is not as effective as story-telling, and the Gospels are stories.

Last week, I was at event, and I sat at a table of persons of a different denomination than I (but one we are in "full communion" with), and we cheerfully introduced ourselves and talked about our ministries. They started talked about Jesus, the penultimate social-worker, and then I was asked how I came to the ministry. I explained ... "predestination" ... "Louis Berkhof" ... "the Old Princetonians" ... "the Puritans" ... and I would swear that they revealed their being hosts to "goa'ould" (cf. "Stargate SG-1"). One of the men hissed at me, "I hope you're not one of those narrow-minded people that try to exclude people based on the teachings of the Bible; there are no teachings in the Bible -- the Bible is all stories, and we have to interpret them for and to our own context."

Well!

I'm not sure how such gnosticism and dogmatic absolutism against absolutes is helpful, or Christian.... I guess my raising the issue is proof that I believe that the Bible is Absolute Truth, the Word of God, which must be followed by we mere mortals. Ah, pity me, poor sad-sack that I am.