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Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth (Osterhaven Lecture)

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Newbigin gives a daunting challenge in this work for the Christian church. As a church leader I found in this book a provocative challenge to speak the truth in the face of a pluralistic culture that holds up relativism and humanism as gods to be honored. Newbigin calls us to speak the truth which is Jesus the Christ and also warns of aligning ourselves with the political agendas of the right or the left but to remain centered on the truth. This is a must read for all who are unsure what the church is to be and what message it needs to speak to our society.

Newbigin brings a solid grasp of the history of thought to his insightful analysis of the contemporary scene. This book is written in an extremely clear manner and is a pleasure to read. Newbigin takes the ideas of Michael Polanyi, a philosopher of science whose thinking had tremendous theological implications, and shows how we can benefit greatly from his philosophical approach. Newbigin analyzes typical arguments from both liberals and conservatives and shows that at many times they both rest on similar flawed assumption. Newbigin also maintains a high view of truth and a strong focus on Christ. I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in communicating the gospel clearly in a postmodern culture.

Lesslie Newbigin published Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, c. 1991). It's a slim volume, making public three lectures delivered at Western Theological Seminary. The lectures are tied together by their concern for truth, because of Newbigin's concern for "the gospel as truth--public truth" (p. 1).
We need, to follow Jesus, a change of mind as well as heart. "The problem of making sense of the gospel is that it calls for a change of mind which is as radical as is the action of God in becoming man and dying on a cross" (p. 10). Like the disciples on the Emmaus road, we need our minds changed by the reality of the resurrected Lord!
Thus, in his first lecture, Newbigin deals with "Believing and Knowing the Truth." Just as the Classical World lost confidence in truth, so today intellectuals of various sorts discount the possibility of actually knowing anything for sure. Despite our tech¬nologi¬cal prow¬ess, a multitude of philosophical and literary symptoms point to an inner "skepticism, nihilism, and despair. Life has no point. Nothing is sacred. Reverence is an unworthy relic of past times. Everything is a potential target for mockery. There are no honored models to shape behavior. The individual is alone and there are no route maps. Young people ask that question which in a stable society never comes to mind: 'Who am I?' And if there is no answer, the simplest way out is to assert the reality of the self by mind¬less violence, or to submerge the self with drugs" (p. 19).
But just as in the Classical World provided a framework for an emergent Christianity, so too our day provides the possibility for Christians to reach a world which inwardly hungers for what Au¬gustine long ago called the food of the soul, Truth. Church Fathers rooted their proclamation in the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. They knew what they believed because it was revealed by God. In our day, "We have to do is what the Church Fathers and Augustine [did] . . . when classical culture had lost its nerve and was disin¬tegrating. We must offer a new starting point for thought. That starting point is God's revelation of his being and purpose in those events which form the substance of the Scriptures and which have their center and determining focus in the events concerning Jesus" (p. 28). That means we must abandon the misleading distinction between faith and knowledge so easily embraced by many thinkers who define faith, as did John Locke, as "a persuasion of our own minds, short of knowledge." Rather, with Augustine, we must follow Augustine's admonition: credo ut intelligam--I believe in order to understand. That's the way most scientists operate, Newbigin argues, and that approach to knowing the truth will suffice in theology as well.
In the second lecture, "Affirming the Truth in the Church," Newbigin urges us to read and proclaim the Bible. He thinks the "liberal/fundamentalist" wars would cease of both groups learned to rightly read and obey the Scripture, heeding it not as isolated individuals but as the body of Christ, communally hearing its clear message. The Word of God, fully incarnate in Jesus, imbedded in the inspired Scriptures, must come alive in us as we hear and obey it--then it can be effectively shared with a needy world.
Finally, in "Speaking the Truth to Caesar," Newbigin suggests that in the USSR it was the patient celebration of the divine liturgy in Orthodox Churches, in East Germany it was the faithful prea¬ching of the word in Lutheran Churches, which most effectively challenged the legitimacy of Caesar. Never underestimate the power of the patient pro¬clamation of the living Word of God!
What we must confront, in the "free world," he thinks, is a false "ideology of freedom," a "con¬cep¬tion of freedom" which frees "each individual to do as he or she wishes. We have to set against it the Trinitarian faith which sees all reality in terms of relatedness" (p. 75). To speak the truth to our liberty-loving soci¬ety demands a great deal of courage. It demands a deep-level assurance that it's the truth we speak. To find that assurance, to know that truth, makes Newbigin a valuable ally.