I hope he repents.

Many who so eagerly jumped onto the postmodern bandwagon are beginning to realize that the true struggle is not between tolerance and intolerance but between truth and falsehood. A new openness to revelation is emerging as well as a desire to reclaim the language of truth that has, until recently, been dropped into the abyss of relativism.

I don’t think Timothy Tennent is advocating an “in-your-face” approach to evangelizing or proselytizing the beliefs one regards as religious truth. Rather, he is arguing for recognizing and studying not just the uniqueness of Christianity but the specific truth claims it makes, truth claims that should be taken seriously (and “tested” as the Scripture asserts).

If you believe all religious values and traditions are essentially the same then what logically follows is a “see-no-evil” intellectual and spiritual malaise resulting from the intentional avoidance of examining important differences in religious claims. This avoidance also may be a byproduct of a misguided desire for consensus (particularly, in its modern, myopic iteration) if that consensus involves jettisoning traditional religious doctrines.

I believe it can be shown that Christianity, more so than any other religion, has underwritten the attempt at discovering objective truth. In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis argues (even using ideas borrowed from non-Christian religious traditions) that objective truth is discoverable but cannot be divorced from values. The values that have led to unparalleled learning throughout history have been most intimately associated, whether overtly or covertly, with the Christian faith.

Christianity has nothing to fear from objective inquiry, though it may fear the failure to honestly undertake such inquiry — and therein lies the rub.

What’s also of note here, in my opinion, is the disconnect between the past and the present. In other words, what’s unique about the development of Christianity that has led to today’s expression of the faith? It was most assuredly not the implicit assumption that all religious claims were equally valid.

Dr. Campbell is sawing off the limb he’s sitting on.

I have no problem with Claremont perpetuating that agenda as an independent liberal arts college; I have a big problem with Claremont perpetuating that agenda as a UMC-funded and affiliated seminary.