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Jonathan,
I appreciate this added perspective, and agree with you on pretty much all counts, especially this: “The truest defense of the faith is not a defense of the faith but the act of love.” Amen.

Just a few thoughts come to mind though as I read this a few times. First, and this is incidental probably, my intent was not to defend “certainty” for certainties sake. My point was that we are, whether we care to admit it or not, certain about certain things (or else, as you say, we have faith in nothing). The question really is: What is worth being certain of? I'm convinced that the Good News calls us to be certain that God has acted on our behalf in Jesus. That God has not left us alone, but has acted within history to redeem and restore creation. This is Good News, and something we ought to unite around.

As a good friend of mine pointed out in a comment just recently, “true humility and love are grounded in honesty.” If we truly believe that Jesus is Lord (as I say in my post) than we can lose the fear of being wrong. We can be honest with each other rather than “tolerant” of each other. We can truly be a people of whom “iron sharpens iron.” The reality is, in order for any true growth to take place, sometimes feelings get hurt and people are misunderstood. Countless times in the conversation it has been said that I have called people “liars” (I didn't) that I am drawing lines in the sand (I'm not), that I said people have a “problem with the Bible” (never said that) or that I have said a person “must” believe this or that (nope, never did). If anyone has reason to have hurt feelings I am certainly one of them.

But this is what family squabbles sometimes look like – messy. Like life. The real question we should be asking ourselves, I think, is “what do we do when we don't agree? How should we respond?” The answer to that question, I think, hinges a lot on that which we are certain of, namely, that Jesus is Lord – not me, you, them, us, that idea, this idea, etc. So, let's break bread and share a cup of wine and say, “Thanks be to God.” And then we can ask, what is God teaching me in this?

If at the heart of Christianity is a tip-toe-around-each-other sort of mentality that always seeks to avoid conflict or truth-telling than we wouldn't even have a “Christianity” to be wrestling over.

Your thoughts?

Chad, you said, “First, and this is incidental probably, my intent was not to defend “certainty” for certainties sake. My point was that we are, whether we care to admit it or not, certain about certain things (or else, as you say, we have faith in nothing). The question really is: What is worth being certain of?”

Isn't that a defense of certainty?

As much as you may not like it, it ends up requiring people to agree with your definitions. And that is the push back I see people giving you. And you seem defensive when they do. If you believe it, then great. But requiring people to believe it means they live in your world, rather than they get to live in theirs. Agreement is NOT required for you to believe it. That's what I think people are trying to get you to see.

Certainty is a product of faith, not the point. But it is revealed when we love.

Well put, Jonathan. I like the NRSV rendering of the Hebrews text but better than the NIV on this point. It opts for “conviction” rather than “certainty.” It seems to me that that is what you are getting at — a conviction which is persistent in love, as Catherine Keller puts it. Certainty, for me, carries a connotation of cognitive assent to this or that point which can easily be divorced from my experience and network of relations. Conviction, on the other hand, has to do with my material reality, the very stuff of my being, that which drives me and that in which a place my trust and fidelity.

I know this is naive, but I find it difficult to believe that we can not come to some simplistic and fundamental definitions of what it means to be a Christian. Seriously, we can not be certain that to love your neighbor as your self is a non-negotiable requirement (and I know that word has negative connotations) of Christian faith? Can we really say that a faith is Christian if there is no Christ in it? I don't care if we agree that he was really resurrected or how to define atonement, etc? But, isn't it reasonable to assume that holding a belief in the virtues of a man in whom the very name “christian” is derived is an essential part of Christian faith?

I think the fear of making an attempt to define Christian faith is based upon a fear of exclusion. Anything weighed in the balance (of my criterion, perhaps) and found wanting is excluded; we have millenniums of history to show the horror and negative effects of that. But, we are living in the twenty-first century and I pray that we have learned our lesson. With grace and tolerance, we should embrace each other regardless of who we are. If you were sitting next to me in a pew and did not believe in Jesus at all, I would love to think that you could share that with me and I'd embrace you with open arms. It doesn't matter to me. But, by the same token, I can not understand for the life of me why such a person would want to identify themselves as a Christian.

I truly believe that the best example of what a Christian is, is expressed in one's life rather that in a catalog of beliefs. But, what one does is irreducibly linked to how one thinks. The entire canon of scripture, without question, a pivotal tool in the development of Christin faith regardless of what we believe about the text itself, was a tool for teaching and the passing on of tradition, and it is inherently concerned with what its recipients believed. I do believe that we can take it and reduce the faith it expresses to some fundamental truths that continue to speak to our world today. In fact, I believe that it is essential that we do so.

Soooo (and I'm purposefully being a little bit cheeky here), I guess it all comes down to what your definition of “certainty” is, right?

This really does begin to point up the deep flaws of verbal communication. I suspect you are both very close to the same point. And I also suspect it also points out our several and individual deep blindnesses. Like the five blind folks describing the elephant, we are indeed “certain” of what we do not see, but we only do not see various parts and parcels of the whole. If I demand that you see my part in the same manner that I do, I am not doing any justice to you at all. Does that make any sense?

Jonathan,
No, I'm not defending certainty. I'm defending a sense of being certain about certain things. That's different.

And no, I'm not requiring anyone to agree with my definitions. You, or anyone, is free to disagree. All I have asked is that people who disagree do so on the merits of what I have actually said/written rather than what they are projecting upon the conversation perhaps due to whatever baggage they may carry over words like “creed” or “doctrine” or “belief” or even “certainty.”

Perhaps the best way to see what I am talking about (and what I think Heb. 11:1) is talking about, is revealed in one's answer to the question, “Is Jesus Christ Lord?” If your answer to this question is “yes” than you aren't saying anything different from what I am saying when I speak of certainty (I like what Blake says about “conviction.” Same thing, IMO). As I stated numerous times, I am not saying anything more or anything less than that.

Now, if the answer to that question is “maybe” or “no” than this is where the conversation can get interesting, as there are any number of reasons that might contribute to that. Today after church I met with a woman in my congregation who doubts God exists right now, let alone that Jesus is Lord. This is because of all sorts of family issues going on causing her great pain, and rightfully so. So her “maybe” or “no” is very different than the apologist or skeptic who is asserting from a position of “certainty” themselves that Jesus is not Lord. A mother in pain who is struggling over whether God really cares about her and her family at all is very different from a person who teaches or writes “I reject the divinity of Christ and his resurrection.” Both of these scenarios require different approaches and lead to different kinds of discussions/questions. It should be clear that I am addressing the polemical tone, not the struggling/wrestling tone.

FYI, my response to the mother was, “We've all felt that way at one time or another. God is big enough to handle your doubts. Don't feel guilty about that now, but just let the church love on ya….” and so forth. But guess what? Part of my answer requires a certain sense of certainty that God can handle her (and mine!) doubts! If I were not certain of that than as her pastor I'd have very little to offer her in the way of counsel. I'd have no Good News to share. This is what I believe Heb. 11:1 is getting at.

I hope that makes things a bit more clear.

Another angle on this comes from Peter: in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. (1 Peter 3:15).

I used to think, back in the day, that this “answer” included everything from my beliefs on atonement theory (always Penal Sub, of course) or why I believed women should not be in ministry (ha!) or homosexuality or what sort of music should be played in church.

But that is not what Peter is getting at, I think. We could all be wrong on any number of those issues no matter what side we land on. There is a sense of certainty that Peter is speaking about – it's the certainty that God has shown up. That God has not left us to ourselves. That in Christ, God's love has been fully revealed to all of creation. Therefore, we have hope. This is what the Good News is about! I believe you believe this to be true as well, Jonathan. I'm pretty sure we are both quite certain that the Gospel is about Good News, not bad news or even “potentially” good news for those lucky enough to be born in the right place and time to the right people. Right?

As I stated in my posts in numerous ways and then throughout all the comments, my “certainty” rests in that. Nothing else. What about that do you find so objectionable as a Christian?

Cmkeel – I have never met anyone who identified as Christian and left Jesus out of the mix. Not all Christians believe the same thing about Jesus (who he was and what his message was) but all the ones I have come into contact with are at least intent on following his way … although “his way” may be understood differently by different people. Have you run across people identifying as Christian and leaving Christ out completely?

You and I will just have to disagree about this one. But honestly this is your argument. Not mine.

Well stated Blake.

We're not actually arguing about the content as much as the need for certainty.

DIsagree about what, exactly?
is Jesus Christ Lord?

That this is not about defending certainty.

Ok, fine. We disagree. However, I was the one who wrote the piece which you are responding to with a blog post of your own. If I say am not defending certainty, perhaps you should hear me a bit more on that? I said a lot more in the above comments and your comment sounds like you don't want to really talk about it. If that's the case, that's cool. If you do still wish to converse about it, why can't we start here: Is Jesus Lord?

Chad, I'm not doubting that you are certain about beliefs, even “Jesus is Lord”. I share that belief. I'm just suggesting that you are arguing for certainty. You don't think you are. We disagree. I'm just suggesting we agree to disagree.

And the point of my post was suggesting that certainty is not really the point, even if you are certain about certain things. I think its a trap that gets you locked into defending your point, which you've been doing for 3-4 posts and about 300 comments. It just doesn't resolve.

My suggestion is that love is the better dialog because it cuts through our pretension we have with the self. Who cares if we're certain if it doesn't produce love?

Jonathan,
What I have been trying to convey is that by our shared belief that Jesus is Lord we are saying the same thing about certainty. IOW, the walls that emergents (including myself) seem to erect whenever we hear words like “doctrine” or “creed” or “belief” or even “certainty” are unnecessary. The 300+ comments and push back by some (but not most) is evidence of this and further evidence of the need for inter-Christian (but not limited to this) dialog. What I am doing is liberating those words from our present cultural confines which are mostly reactionary in nature (i.e: the reaction that says: in my evangelical church growing up they used “doctrine” to lord over others and therefore all “doctrine” is bad). This just isn't true, and we are doing each other a disservice if we are choosing to perpetuate this myth.

Yes, love is the best dialog. But what shapes love? Who cares about someone's “love” if it's not rooted in some object? A few examples:

1. A friend of mine is a street preacher. He claims he “loves” sinners and is showing love better than anyone when he yells at those passing by and telling them they are hellbound. For him, to not do this is a crime against God and creation, and he think people like myself who show love in different ways are actually quite hateful because we don't pass out bibles at every soup kitchen.

2. In my paper, “Homosexuality: God's Gift to the Church,” I discovered all sorts of “love” in my research. Here is one snippet from that paper to illustrate what I mean:

John Harvey, writing for the Roman Catholic Church, also claims a love ethic. Harvey would agree that love equals love but define love in a very specific way. In his book, The Homosexual Person, he exhorts the Church to embrace a posture of “tough love” towards homosexuals. He states, “We love when we move people to holiness, as painful, cross-bearing as that may be.” Harvey goes on to say that acceptance of homosexuals is “soft love” because it is not “spiritually nor psychologically productive.” (source: http://chadholtz.net/?p=956 )

3. Piper, Keller and D.A. Carson recently met for a discussion about what the Gospel is and what love really is. They concluded that while taking care of the physical world is important, the MAIN thing is people's souls. We are most loving, they agreed, when we are helping people transition from an eternity in hell to one in heaven.

I think all of these are off target, and yet they all would say the same thing as you: Love is the most important dialog. You said to CmKeel above that this isn't about “content” but about “certainty.” I disagree. It's very much about content – the content of our beliefs (or those things we are certain about) dictate how and whom we love.

If you read my posts I think it is obvious that I am going for something bigger than those 3 examples would allow.

I've gone from certainty (a long time ago), to confidence, to simple hope. Jesus is reason for this hope. Confidence is a word too closely related to the mathematics of probability. We live by faith, hope, and love – not certainty.

Physicist Marcelo Gleiser wrote (http://n.pr/9uoIQO), even “in science, it is exciting not to know.” And if you take the concept of a truly infinite Spirit seriously, then what we don't know is infinitely greater than what we do know. Otherwise, we reduce God to a solidified idol of our own making, and put our confidence in our own understanding, rather than in the always-new, always revealing reality that is Jesus.

JB, I like what you said, “the truest defense of the faith is not a defense of the faith, but the act of love.”

I actually think hope is more powerful than certainty because it leads to love. I'll take that any day of the week. ;-P

I actually think hope is more powerful than certainty because it leads to love. I’ll take that any day of the week. ;-P