So evidently Emerson did not believe in truth and so in that way was a kind of forerunner to postmodernism? Truth is something that can arise for each individual, but is not something that exists, particularly in Jesus, before.

Of course I’m not not agreeing with that, and I don’t think any churches striving to live the gospel in a postmodern world subscribe to that, either.

You can’t get to the water by licking the cup but the water needs a cup in which abide.
I love nature. I feel/see/hear/experience God through his good creation, which points ultimately back to him. It is from that foundation that I come to love the church. It is the vehicle or agent through which spirituality speaks to my soul and it’s rich traditions are time-tested methods of soul searching and grace finding. I can’t transcend that. I can’t ignore that thousands of years of Christians have given us their guidance and that much of what they say is good and right.

Scot,
I went to the Amazon.com and read some more about the book. I was struck by how each generation of Americans from the founding of the country until now have had someone predicting and lamenting the secularization of this God-fearing country. Truly there is nothing new under the sun. As you know, even in the present election process there are loud frightful cries about the loss of our (assumed) Christian foundation as a nation.
Do you think we read too much modern evangelicalism back into the founding leaders’ declarations?

John,
Precisely what I like about this book: apocalyptic doom saying is part of our history. It’s the way we do things.
Founding leaders … there was lots of diversity there. But there was a deep strain of Deism in all of this and a deep strain of breaking away from the rule of the Church and a King.

I think Emerson was only a forerunner to postmodernism because he was thoroughly modern. ?I go for churches of one.? A church of one. Is there anything more individualistic? No community. Nobody can tell me what to think.
I love Whitman’s poetry, but he ends up in the same place. “Only what nobody denies is true” (paraphrase).
I think we find Emerson in 2 extreme and unlikely places. One danger of repeating the “church of one” heresy is in extreme “just me and God” spirituality, when there is no strong theology of the Body of Christ.
The “moral sentiment” comes in with folks like Bishop Spong, who denies theism while still trying to “find a way to talk about God”. At least Emerson had the honesty to step down when he no longer believed the Christian story. There’s nothing down that road, ultimately, other than greeting-card advice to “follow your heart”.

It is amazing to see history repeat itself. Reading your summary of Emerson reminds me a lot of today and the discussion created by emerging: 1) some in emerging have problems with church institutions, creeds, etc, 2) some in emerging replace religious work with social work of philanthropy, 3) some in emerging (and other places) see the demise of the church without a major change and 4) Emerson’s ideas of distinguishing spirituality (good) from religion (church) reminds me of emerging cultural analysis such as Kimball’s “they love Jesus but not the church.”
Please don’t misread this to be a critique of emerging (or comparison of Emerson to Dan!), I’m just noting similarities.
It would be interesting to compare those who reacted against Emerson to those who are reacting against emerging.

There is an irony here:
Here?s a potent statement: ?How many people are there in Boston? Two hundred thousand. Then there are so many sects. I go for churches of one.?
Seemingly, the author of the quote (presumably Emerson?)is bemoaning the number of sects. But by advocating “churches of one”, he is advocating more sects – Two Hundred Thousand of them, if his population estimate is correct.

very interesting! The historical fear of secularization is a new lens I did not have. Compelling topic. Thanks.

I grew up in Concord (mass)… surrounded by the shrine places of Emerson, Thoreau, and the rude bridge that arched the flood where once the embattled farmers stood…(emerson’s poem)
other contemporaneous concordians of that era included Bronson and Louisa May Alcott and esp Nathaniel Hawthorne of Scarlet Letter fame.
minor key Pomo twist — when i was growing up, the Concord Catholic school was Rose Hawthorne… named after the daughter of Nate, who converted to Catholicism… (the schools been turned into condos long since… the Emerson manses and Alcott homes etc are all run as tourist destinations…
Harvey Cox’s Secular City went kinda down this road in the 60′s… then he wrote one of the better histories of recent Pentecostalism (Fire From Heaven)… which opens with the story of all the high-end transcendalists gathered at the world’s fair… then the chicago fire…
cut to Seymour and friends… down in Azusa Street… and a dif kind of fire…
grace.

Can anybody imagine Boston with only 200,000 people?

Christian faith has been based on “truth claims”, but these claims are only ways of understanding. They are not “set in stone”. They are interpretaions.
1.)The Scriptures are literature. They were written by human men, who were inspired by something they experienced (or they were written by those who heard about what inspired another person). Truth is not propositional, but personal. Faith is also personal, because it resides in the human heart and understanding. So, it takes faith to believe that there is truth and that truth can be known.
2.) There are many truths, but no one Truth.
Truth is living in integrity within one’s convictions, which is living truth.
Truth is a belief (doctrine), but it must be believed by a person, which is personally assented to.
Truth is historical fact, as truth in space and time, but a historical fact about a person’s existence does not tell us anything about what to believe about the person. Beliefs about historical people are handed down by others who knew the person. So by faith, one believes the testimonies of those who knew Christ.
Faith cannot be “proven” in an absolute sense. We theorize and justify and warrant, but cannot verify.
3.) Why is it necessary to maintain “control” over another’s belief/faith? Even Jesus allowed people to walk away or believe something different. If Jesus is the “moral exemplier” of Christian faith, then, why aren’t Christians more “tolerant” to sinners and those that believe differently? And why do they subscribe to “tradtion” (culture) like the Pharisees, when tradition holds another away from faith? It seems to me that Jesus was about faith, and not about systems and traditions. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. So, if we do something, no matter how “Christian”, then, if it is done without faith, then is it of value or worth?
4.)Faith can be viewed as a struggle to understand and an acknowledgment that there have been many differences and colors of faith, even within Christian tradition and every single man thought their understanding was “truth”.
5.)So, unless one want so go back to the Catholic tradition (oh, but then there is the Eastern Orthodox! And then, what about Judiasm, as Christian faith was a Jewish sect?), you will have variances of understanding the Scriptures.
6.) What about Judiasm and Palestine? What is true there?
Hopefully, truth is understood as a desire to know, but humility will recognize that we cannot know everything, and certainly not absolutely!

“Truth is historical fact, as truth in space and time, but a historical fact about a person?s existence does not tell us anything about what to believe about the person.”
I don’t think that’s true. The historical fact OF a person’s existence may not tell us anything, but the historical facts ABOUT that person tell us plenty. For instance, either Jesus was resurrected or he is still in the ground somewhere. If he’s still in the ground somewhere, we may still decide he was a good teacher, who had some good ideas, but that’s about it. We’ll place him with Socrates, the Buddha, St. Frances, and Nelson Mandela. If, however, he was resurrected (which is, historically, the claim of the early Christians), that too has huge implications for who he was.
You’re right; we cannot know everything, and we cannot know absolutely. We see through a mirror, darkly. We could probably all use a good dose of epistemological humility. But if truth is ENTIRELY subjective, then it’s merely decorative. If all we have is “faith”, in the abstract, with no actual content, it doesn’t really matter much.

I agree with Travis that Emerson’s hyper-individualism rings more of modernism than post-modernism.

There’s much of what you’ve written, Angie, that does not ring with accuracy and authenticity. I’ll just mention one.
2.) There are many truths, but no one Truth.
Truth is living in integrity within one?s convictions, which is living truth.
If this is really correct, then if I have the conviction that it is right, I may kidnap, rape, and murder the cute blonde college girl up the street and leave her mutilated body on the bayou a few blocks from here, and I will have acted in integrity with my convictions … but I will not have lived truth.
Yes, Angie, there is at least one truth that is always true, and it is: kidanp, rape, murder and mutilation is always wrong. And if that is true, then I had better study the world around me to find out if there is more to this one truth.

Tim (#10): without using a lot of “dot, dot, dots” what are you talking about? I’m Pentecostal so very interested in Azusa Street (the original). If you have some insight in regards to the New England group of Unitarians versus pentecostal revivalism, I am all ears.

Rick, I really appreciate what you have said, but as I said..truth is not “set in stone”. When we speak of the Ten Commandments, they must be applied. If we apply the Commandments, they must be interpreted to situations, circumstances, etc. This is where ethics comes in and where people disagree as to what it means to “kill” for example. Our laws have been fine-tuned to explain what the nuances are and what they mean in certain situations. So, of course, I agree that there are certain behaviors that are never appropriate.
And, you must consider how I began my entry with “Christian faith”. Faith is what I was talking about and how that is connected to truth…

Mike (16) sorry for the dot dot dots–its too long a story to tell in a short post — but do read Fire From Heaven, at least the first chapter, when you get a chance. Not really a concord reference directly, tho–in nearby boston, the quiet revival as it’s been sometimes called, is led by mostly Pentecostals, many of them from communities-of-color and immigrant commmunities… much like the first Asuza revival.
I spent some time after seminary and before starting as a pastor working with Black Pentecostal pastors and churches on economic development and AIDS and debt in the global South. One of them, Rev Gene Rivers (like i think Thoreau? is a harvard drop-out–and a sometimes fiery abolitionist) — pastors a small church called Azusa Christian Community. Cox opens with the contrast between the chicago fire burning up the great hopes of turn of the century top-down transcendentalism and a contrasting story of the first Asuza revival fires — and ends the book with a short episode from Asuza in Boston…
this is seriously abridged but gotta pray and run
blessings!

Rick in Texas: I may kidnap, rape, and murder the cute blonde college girl up the street and leave her mutilated body on the bayou a few blocks from here, and I will have acted in integrity with my convictions
Are those your convictions? Is that something you want to do?
I grow weary of this convoluted Jonathan Edwards business of pretending we’re monsters so that we can pretend we need absolute moral certainty so that we can pretend we need God.