It may be that I am lazy recently but I have seen so much good writing on some other blogs, that I don’t have much to say. I was turned toward the blog reformation 21 by Dave Doran’s Glory and Grace (see side links). Carl Trueman has an excellent (albeit lengthy) post on the new tool of post-modern debaters called “hurt mail.” He builds an excellent case that our post-modern world’s (and Christian’s) obsessing about how they have been hurt or victimized by opposing views demonstrates that they have lost the debate and have personalized that which was never personal. In so doing, they have taken a step further in making truth appear relative. We live in a culture and age where it seems “being hurt” takes precedence over truth. Take the time to read Carl’s post “Is Hurt Mail the New Hate Mail” It will challenge you as it did me.
Here are some points Mr. Trueman makes regarding this emphasis of feelings over substance:
“The impact of all this feeling of hurt and processing of pain is twofold. First, as noted above, it transforms arguments from debates about truth into debates about taste; and that is lethal for Christian orthodoxy.”
“The second area of impact is the way in which this ‘hurt’ and ‘pain’ cheapens the language and leads to trivialization of all things serious.”
“Reformed evangelicals are not like other men, this is not just a monopoly of the church on the left of the evangelical spectrum; some of the biggest whiners, mewlers and pukers out there are among the professed advocates of the old school approach to things. Thin-skins, absurd senses of entitlement and a bizarre conviction that all criticism of ideas is really a personally intended affront to those who hold them are not the exclusive preserve of any one theological party.”
“This new tactic also involves a fundamental change in the whole moral landscape. Let’s face it: pain, as an abstract concept, is not in itself evil or a sin. . . Pain in itself is not bad; rather, it is the cause or the purpose of the pain that provides the good or the evil involved. Thus, to complain that somebody has hurt you is, as noted above, to put an aesthetic category where a moral category should be. The question to ask is not ‘Do I feel pain?’ but ‘What has this person done that has caused me pain?’ “
Learning to seperate ideas from people–that is such a good point. Would that more folk were listening.