21. Truth Molding Faith

In the parable, the four mentors represent four ways of thinking, each shaped by a specific view of truth. These ways of thinking (epistemological frameworks) act like mental software that also shape people’s faith in radically different ways. One of the four mentors, the scientist, sparks two opposite kinds of belief. Let’s take a quick look at these five types of faith.

Fisherman’s Faith

When people's minds work like the traditional (pre-modern) thinking of Fisherman, faith is right at home. The Bible was written by and for people who saw truth like Fisherman does. Children usually begin life with a junior version of this mindset, but as they grow up in the Western world and go through school, their way of thinking shifts. Their mindset-slider gets pushed by the voices around them toward Scientist’s (modernist) or Artist’s (postmodern) way of thinking.

For most well-educated people in the West, Fisherman thinking (pre-modernism) has reached the end of its shelf-life. Some of us are mostly modernist in our thinking, and some are mainly postmodern. Faith can do well in modernist and postmodern minds as long as they are in their beginning phases, just starting to move away from Fisherman thinking. When the mindset-slider shifts further onward, serious problems begin to appear that cause many to walk away from faith.

Scientist’s Faith #1 (Liberal Theology)

When Scientist’s way of thinking is dominant in someone’s mind, and it notches up beyond a certain point, all input into that mind gets measured by higher and higher critical standards. Information now has to be in line with an ever-narrowing standard of what could be accepted as reliable and true. This also counts for Scripture. The result is that long-held convictions begin to fail the test of these higher critical standards. So, miracles in the Bible become problematic, as well as creation from nothing, Noah’s flood, the virgin birth, and resurrection from death. Biblical stories begin to be seen as fables, fiction, and myths. Faith convictions are chipped away and eroded. The long-term result is that God becomes less relevant. People’s understanding is not formed by the Word anymore, but by the intelligent, respected meaning-shapers of the day. Faith is by now held loosely as something adaptable and personal, like hopes, dreams, and wishes.

Some move a notch or two further to become agnostic and atheistic as God melts away to them.

Scientist’s Faith #2 (Fundamentalism)

Some people whose minds work in a way like Scientist’s become fundamentalists. Now, the word fundamentalism has been used to describe two opposite movements, and it is important to discern between them.

The early fundamentalists in the late 1900s chose the word fundamentalism to describe themselves. They were against the modernistic liberal theology of the time, which was peeling away important parts of what Christians had believed for centuries. These early fundamentalists were committed to sticking to the fundamentals or basics, continuing with a Fisherman-kind of faith.

When the word fundamentalism is used today by the secular media, it points to something altogether different. Whether it is used about Muslims or Christians, the word fundamentalism describes people with a militant attitude and an absolute certainty that the truth is a hundred percent unambiguous and clear. They see their own group as the proud protectors of this clear-cut truth. 

Fundamentalists normally see themselves as fierce enemies of modernism. Ironically, these enemies of one form of modernism hold a different set of clear-cut (modernistic) certainties. They use mental software similar to that of other modernists. The only difference is that they take their holy book (Bible or Quran) as absolutely true to the letter and punctuation, and then use analysis and synthesis to build their infallible doctrines. In the parable, this kind of reasoning is seen in the Bible Church Scientist.

This second kind of “modernists” are less likely to experience a visible washing away of faith like theological liberals. However, they are quite likely to experience a sinkhole effect. While everything may look fine on the surface, serious erosion happens deep underground because faith is mainly intellectual to them. In many cases, you would never spot the hidden erosion. In others, there can be a spectacular collapse of faith or morality. High-profile examples of implosions and explosions abound.

Artist’s Faith

When postmodern thinking is dominant and it notches up beyond a certain degree, large portions of the Bible become problematic. People who think like Artist begin to see the Bible as too prescriptive, restrictive, and judgmental. 

Scripture, to them, begins to clash with individual freedom. The beauty of the gospel gets marred in their minds as it becomes more and more troubling that God’s embrace in Scripture, does not seem to be unconditional, inclusive, or diverse enough. Some of God’s announcements and acts begin to be seen as offensive and downright inexcusable, for example, remarks about women remaining silent in churches and the critique of homosexuality. The picture of God’s character in people's minds gradually becomes warped, contorted, and, eventually, objectionable. 

It is with a sigh of relief that the fully postmodern woman, man, or teenager eventually turns away from God as they choose to live without Him. They do not become atheists. They are just done with God.

For some postmodernists, the process involves deconstructing their faith rather than simply walking away. The hope with deconstructing faith is to eliminate elements that are offensive, outdated, and rigid. 

Deconstructing and reconstructing lifeless objects like LEGO blocks is easy enough. Yet, when anything that is alive or living gets deconstructed, like a frog dissected in biology class, it is likely to leave a bloody mess. Success in meaningfully reconstructing anything living is elusive—whether it be frogs, love, or faith.

Something very different is needed.

Wildlife Researcher’s Faith

If modernist and postmodern thinking both gnaw away at our faith and the faith of our children, what should we do? If both ways of thinking, when they develop far enough, undermine our commitment to Church, Sacrament, and Scripture, would it help to combine the two? 

Many of us in the modern West indeed have a mismatched mix of Scientist and Artist components in our brains, with a toggle switch that randomly flicks between modernist and postmodern modes of thinking. Sadly, the mingling of the two opposite mindsets offers no better alternative but compounds their problems.

Our only two options for a unified, but broad enough view of truth that can accommodate all aspects of personhood, including faith and meaningfulness, seem to be the broad views of truth of Fisherman (pre-modernism) or a unified multi-dimensional view of truth that we see in the parable in Wildlife Researcher.

Rather than painstakingly deconstructing and reconstructing faith, we need to give attention to the container of faith; to our ability to accommodate and handle faith. We need a mental software upgrade and reboot—almost like a new birth—a fresh, updated understanding of truth.

Fisherman Faith Today

When Western churches embark on mission trips abroad, their typical remarks about the non-Western Christians they meet often include:

• Their faith in God is unlike anything we ever see here. 
• We went to teach them, but have learned so much more.
• I’ve never sensed the presence of God as clearly as among them.

Many return home from mission trips, inspired but unsettled, sensing that something vital has been lost in the West. They long for a faith that feels as grounded, communal, and enduring as they encountered abroad.

Perhaps this same longing helps explain why a growing number of Protestants in the USA are converting to Orthodoxy. A similar, subtle trend can be seen among Protestants—and even skeptics—turning to the Catholic Church. Commentators suggest that this shift is driven by a hunger for tradition, structured liturgy, or, in the case of Orthodoxy, a more masculine expression of worship.

Our parable points to a different possibility.

There has also been, in recent years, a noticeable rise in interest in Amish and Mennonite communities. A whole genre of Amish fiction has developed, with 97 new titles published only in 2023.

So, what ties these seemingly unrelated groups together?

The movement toward Catholic Christianity may reflect a yearning for a tradition that rises above cultural trends and a refuge from the consumer-driven mindset that became all too common in many Protestant churches. Of course, the Catholic Church is still thoroughly Western in mindset in Western countries. 

In the other three groups—Amish, Orthodox, and the Christians encountered on mission trips—we find a striking, hard-to-pin-down sense of communal wholesomeness that’s largely absent in the modern-day Western world. All three groups share an approach to truth and faith similar to that of the Fisherman in our parable. Their devotion to God is simple yet profound, unclouded by the over-analysis of modernist thinking or the enthronement of feelings characteristic of postmodernism. These groups have never embraced modernism in their theology, and as a result, they’ve completely sidestepped the reaction of postmodern theology.

Something in the faith of these groups holds a magnetic pull that appeals powerfully to people of the West in ways that are almost impossible to define.

Back to the Future

How do we rekindle the depth of faith we see in these communities? How do we recover from the spiritual bankruptcy that modernism and postmodernism delivered to our doorstep? 

To prepare for the future, we may need to turn to the past. We need to ignore the noise of our time and the rumblings of the previous century or more. We need to turn our backs on thousands of pop-psychology Christian books and many superficial YouTube sermons. We need to shift our trust from library shelves of overly academic theological works. We need to turn our focus further back to learn at the feet of men and women of God who have lived and served before modernism and postmodernism became rampant—back to the saints through the ages, to the Early Church, to Scripture, and most of all, to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

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1. See the interview with Bible Scholar, Professor Joshua Bowen as an example.
Goodreads
2. Growth in popularity of Amish Literature: Goodreads