Understanding Truth within a Global Conversation

As each of you are on your truth journey, we would like to recommend a specific exercise to strengthen your understanding of truth and challenge your thinking. We are involved in the Lausanne Movement and they have launched a Global Conversation leading up to next years Congress in South Africa. This is the largest interaction of evangelicals in the world and it is a wonderful opportunity to see how our brothers and sisters understand truth as it applies to key topics.

Take a minute to visit the Global Conversation page, read the key articles and jump in on the conversation. Click here to begin!

Why is this so important? We are convinced that unless you are asking questions from the larger world, challenging your assumptions and humbly listening to others, you will never grow as Christ intended you to. It is easy to become more and more entrenched in our own ways of looking at the world, but it takes courage and strength to reach out.

Now we are not saying that it doesn't take courage to stand for what you believe and to not be swayed by deception. But what we are saying is that we need to be always learning, always asking questions, and always open to what God may have for us today.

Blessings as you join this global conversation!

Check out some of the reviews posted on Amazon

We are getting some good thoughts posted to Amazon about the book. Here are a few of the positive along with some of the more critical. You can see the full reviews by clicking here. We are so excited to hear people talking about this topic and considering it as something that impacts their lives, faith, relationships and outreach.

"This was a transparent look at the three major ways of looking at truth: Positivism, Instrumentalism, and Critical Realism. It is easy to read and avoids the textbook word use that would normally fill a book on this topic. I thought the authors approached the topic with gentleness and grace and it was not an assault on anyone's point of view." J. TenBrink

"Jon and Mindy Hirst take you through our cultural troubled waters with a canoe and a paddle. They help to identify and avoid serious rapids that impede our understanding of how culture bound we are. This is not an easy canoe trip, but as you cross this river you will learn much about yourself and your assumptions. Give it a hard stroke and you will be rewarded."--Jim Reapsome

"Like anyone who tries to figure out where a story is going before he gets there, I had the positivists and instrumentalists pegged early in the story as positions the authors do not respect very much. Characters from either of these perspectives are, in the book's portrayal, hopeless; they are stuck in their epistemology. It is only the Critical Realists who have hope, life, and healthy relationships. I was, at points, surprised not to find the Critical Realists described as wearing capes, masks, and tights. . . What the Hirsts want is for people, especially Christians, I think, to consider two things: first, that though there is objective, real truth, you don't have a monopoly on it; and second, through communication and community we can all better come to know the truth and life that God offers us." - Not listed

"My criticisms aside, the book does a good job of introducing philosophy in a non-technical way to the layperson. I highly recommend it to any one who is having troubles with family or friends and they don't have the language yet to engage holistically with those people. This book is definitely written with positivists in mind, and seems to have in its purpose a call for positivists to rethink their positions and move "through the river." As one who has already moved through much of the river, the book did not really give me anything fundamentally "new" to chew on (but then again, new is overrated). It did, however, give me a good book to recommend to family and friends who want to learn the beginnings of philosophy and its relation to a holistic approach to God." Daniel Kam

"Epistemology was once a topic confined to the college classroom, but practical issues facing Christians today benefit from a critical look into the way we see the world. After all, those lenses affect the way we relate to other people and share our faith. Through the River is an accessible introduction to the conversation." Ian F. Eastman

Understanding "the truth we are learning" through Stories

I came across a great speech by a Nigerian author the other day thanks to a friend of mine from Kenya. The author's name is Chimamanda Adichie and she told the TED conference that one of the great mistakes that we have made as people is to promote only one story.

She shared how when she was a child she only red European children's books and so when she began to write as a young person, her books were filled with snow, tea and other European things even though they were not part of her daily experience.

This happens so often. We tell a single story and expect it to accurately represent truth across thousands of languages, geographies, relationships and experiences. What I love about Adichie's challenge is that she is asking people to expose themselves to more than just the story that is most common to their experience.

Now as we think about truth, the key is what we share in our book. The three truth lenses have very different perspectives on the stories that we interact with. The rocky shore (positivism) believes that we should identify the one true story and help everyone get on that page and enjoy the richness of it. The islands (instrumentalism) believe that we should allow for countless stories to exist at the same time without any need to harmonize them. The far shore believes that there is a core story that runs through our lives as believers that we can share in common with everyone and that other stories add richness to the core story as they bring their experiences, cultures, relationships and history to the community of learners.

Take a minute to watch this powerful presentation and ask yourselves these questions:
1. What story is dominant in my life?
2. When other stories come into my path, how do I respond?
3. What can I learn from other stories that are not my own?

Question and Answer on Christian Post

If you want to get some of the basics about the book "Through the River" check out the Q&A that Christian Post published.

Truth Lens Challenge

Now that we’ve talked about the different truth lenses, let’s try on a different pair and see what the world looks like. Try taking off your Rocky Shore lens or your Sandy Island lens and try to see what the world would look like from the far shore on the Valley side.

Go through your day with the assumption that you don’t know everything, but that you can know some things. Put the truth you know and the truth you are learning into practice. How do you relate differently to people? How does your conversation change? Is your vocabulary any different? You might even find that there isn’t vocabulary for what you’re trying to say. That’s expected, since our language has developed using the Rocky Shore truth lens.

How is your attitude? Is it any more Biblical than it was before? Is humility creeping in? Are you in a state of learning?

Go ahead, try it on, and see what happens.

30 Days of Truth Teasers

Since we have launched our book, we have been tweeting about truth under the name #TruthTeaser. You can see them all on twitter, but we wanted to share them on the blog as well. These 30 ideas are short but have a lot of kick to them. We have tried to sythesize many of the biggest most critical ideas in the book into these short tweets. We pray that they are helpful in your truth journey.

1. Your assumptions about truth are like glasses that affect everything you see.
2. Some people spend their lives adding truth and subtracting untruth.
3. Some people see truth as a personal matter. They live on islands with no bridges.
4. Some find truth they know and recognize that they are learning the rest in community.
5. If you insist that all truth is knowable then experts are essential.
6. Many arguments have more to do with your truth lens than the truth itself.
7. Personal truth seems freeing but ends in isolation.
8. Humility changes how you interact about truth.
9. Culture wars rise out of a fear that our understanding of truth is losing influence.
10. Personal experience brings new perspectives on the truth we know.
11. Tolerance raises love to the highest position at the expense of truth.
12. Our understanding of truth directly affects our approach to outreach.
13. Math is the language of those who seek to completely understand truth.
14. Relationships are the language of those who believe truth is learned in community.
15. Faith represents what we know, hope what we’re learning and love how truth is lived out.
16. Personal truth is convenient until someone else’s truth collides with mine.
17. We experience a great disturbance when our assumptions about truth fall short.
18. Many of us make certainty the focus of our truth search when clarity would serve us better.
19. When we say “ham sandwich” what do you imagine? What is a true ham sandwich like?
20. When objectivity is the goal, the richness of truth is lost.
21. On the island of personal truth you are one misstep away from the river of relativism.
22. Knowing feels safe, learning feels dangerous. Its easy to settle for some knowledge and give up learning more.
23. Living in community creates the opportunity to see truth as a journey
24. Every new idea can be seen as a threat, as someone else’s or as a new perspective to discover.
25. A picture is an exact image of reality.
26. A collage is thousands of ideas about reality.
27. A montage is thousands of ideas brought together into a whole.
28. Do you view truth as a picture a collage or a montage?
29. Your truth lens is a key part of your worldview.
30. Your view of truth will impact your faith, relationship and outreach.

Maps

Maps are wonderful truth tools to explain life on the far shore with the Valley Dwellers (critical realists). The map represents some portion of reality, without representing the whole thing. A map of my neighborhood may have the fences drawn in, but a map of my whole town would omit that truth. It doesn’t mean that the truth of the fences does not exist, it just means that it is not part of the map.

So for the Valley Dwellers, you can understand truth without having the whole truth. A map can omit truth and yet still be true. This illustrates the truth we know and the truth we are learning. The truth we know may be the street names and the distance from one place to another. The truth we are learning may be the fences or the color of the mailboxes. We are not given an infinitely detailed map of reality. We only have maps to help guide us as we navigate our world.