Chuck Colson Forgets to Take His Metamucil

Chuck Colson reports that he recently shouted “No!” during a church service when the music director suggested the congregation repeat a fluffy worship chorus. He complains that contemporary worship music is too loud and lacking in content. Haven’t we heard all this before, say, back in 1982 or so? I think it’s time for a certain grumpy old man to increase his fiber intake.

Separately, in this months Christianity Today, Colson writes (“with Ann Morse,” the by-line of the one-page article says) again, about the Emerging Church and propositional truth. I really do like alot of what Colson has said and done in the past, but the anti-Emergent posturing is getting tiresome. I do agree, though, with the main point of his essay: Jesus is the Truth whether we experience him or not. We don’t construct Jesus through our culture or language. Jesus, and the Father, and the Spirit, the three-in-one, just is, and always was, and always will be, whether anyone knows it or proclaims it or not.

But if that’s Colson’s beef with the Emerging Church, I’m not sure where the beef is. I don’t think most folks who are part of or interested in Emergent would disagree with Colson on this point. Now, it’s one thing to say that Jesus absolutely, always, for everyone, is the Truth, and it’s another to say that I can completely, absolutely, capture that truth with my human mind and language. Can I express that truth in propositional form, even if inadequately? Yes. Are my propositions, in themselves, The Truth? Here I would say no. Jesus is The Truth, and my propositions about him — this one included — are only approximations, albeit sometimes reasonably clear and good approximations given my limitations.

BTW, I can’t link to Colson’s most recent CT column yet, because CT is now following the trend of providing full text online only for past issues. Blech.