Some of those presuppositions that have held sway over our perspective of relevance are beginning to loosen their hold over society. The worldview that has defined relevance for us is beginning to creak. Maybe not crumble but it is beginning to shift. Our perspective of relevance is in flux.

We are living in confusing times. Many culture-watchers are convinced that our society is undergoing a transformation of broad proportions. This cultural shift goes by various designations. Some observers tell us we are in the throes of a transition from a Christian to a post-Christian era. Others declare that we are moving from a Constantinian to a post-Constantinian situation.
But the most widely used description suggests that we are witnessing the emergence of a “postmodern” society. Whatever may be the preferred nomenclature, the various voices are in agreement that the cultural shift now transpiring carries grave implications for the church.
Stanley J Grenz

I am sitting in a coffee shop today where I sat about two months ago when I overheard a conversation between a mother and her two sons; the first about five years old, the second a little older, maybe seven. The mother was scanning the menu board to find her preferred coffee while the two kids pressed their faces up against the glass display housing all of the moderately fresh treats. As she prepared to order she told the tow kids to pick something that they might like to eat while she had her coffee. The two boys were pretty excited about that and turned al of their attention towards the looming decision. Just as the mother had entered into her paragraph long description of the latte she had chosen the first so turned to her and proclaimed, “I want a rice krispie square.” Scanning the display case she returned back, “I don’t think they have rice krispie squares, how about a marshmallow square.” Obviously in her mind the similarities were striking. The aesthetic similarity, the high marshmallow content of both, the utter lack of nutritional significance in each, surely these were enough to offset the minute differences. To her son however, the dissimilarities were quite significant.
“I don’t want a marshmallow square. I want a rice krispie square”, the agitation in his voice rising to a desperate plea.
By this time the second son had had quite enough. Being older and wiser, he gathered all of his experience in this particular field of study and turned to his younger sibling.
“Marshmallow squares are the new rice krispie squares.”
It was a bold statement. It was powerful and pithy and captured the entire zeitgeist of modern coffee shop treats. It was good enough for his brother.
“Okay, I’ll have a marshmallow square.”

The problem with the shift that is happening in our worldview today is that we know what the old rice krispie squares are, we just don’t know what the new rice krispie square is going to be. We walk into churches and we are completely aware of what we don’t want to experience. We were turned away by the perceived dissonance between the words and actions of the religious. We had had enough of the money grabbing and lifestyle manipulations and yet somehow in the midst of all of our angst we have been unable to articulate what we imagine our experience of spirituality could be. We have long ago decided that we were dissatisfied with the easy answers of the institution of church and yet in their place we have little to offer. Though many of us have walked away from the old we are still searching in the fog for what could emerge, for what could become.

Grenz is right. Our world is shifting. It has changed and is continuing to change in the same churn of development that has brought us this far as a society. The stories we have told about God have become stale. The images and metaphors that once connected to our experience of life and self have become out of date and lost their power to motivate, influence and inspire. Somehow, over time, we have confused our stories, born out of a limited perspective on God and truth, for the absolute reality of his existence. We have forgotten that the stories we told about God were designed to describe him, never to define him. We have forgotten that the power of metaphor and image and story reside in their ability to point us towards truth that cannot be contained in proposition or language, that cannot be articulated in theories and theologies. Ultimately we have forgotten that God is so much bigger than our imagination of him.

It is this very shaking of the presuppositions of the modern world that has caused us to re-examine the validity of our stories. It has called us towards the realization that we have used our limited perspective of God to limit him, to make him small. In an effort to make God relevant to our limited experience of life we have edited God so that he fits into our categories.

Those of us that have wrestled with the implications of an emerging worldview have been derided as formulating a subjective understanding of God. The accusation is that we have thrown out the pillars of the Christian faith and rejected absolute truth. Of course that is a very cursory evaluation. Many people through out the history of the church have wrestled with what it means to know an absolute God within the context of our limited experience of the world. To acknowledge that limitation is not a rejection of God’s absolute character. It is simply recognition of our place in relation to truth.

To take relativism to it’s logical conclusion ends in absurdity. To suggest that there is no truth beyond my limited experience of life is not a sustainable worldview. However, what is becoming equally apparent as our worldview shifts is the absurdity of asserting that our limited experience of life is absolute.

Truth exists. It exists beyond whatever experience you or I have of it. The problem comes when we substitute our experience of truth for truth itself. You and I and every other person we encounter have a different story that has brought us to our point of interaction. There is a history that has brought to you the point of reading this book and it will have a role in shaping how you understand my words. In the same way that story influences the way we perceive and interact with truth. Though that realization may show our experience of truth as subjective it doesn’t call into question the otherness of God or the existence of truth beyond ourselves, it simply brings perspective to our bias.