Os Guinness on 'True Truth'

About 100 people gathered at the Round Church, the home of Christian Heritage in Cambridge on the evening of 15th May for a commemorative meeting 30 years after Francis Schaeffer's death.

Ranald Macaulay and Andrew Fellows began proceedings with fairly brief and light but enjoyable introductions, first to Schaeffer himself (Ranald is one of his sons in law, a former director of L'Abri and founder-director of Christian Heritage) and then to L'Abri(Andrew is director of English L'Abri in Greatham, Hampshire).

After refreshments, the 'main course' was Os Guinness on 'True Truth' - a very Schaefferish phrase. He spoke brilliantly for 45 minutes without a note. He spoke of the two sources of our present crisis of truth - ideas, and also social and cultural influences.

He encouraged us that scepticism is the fruit of the over-reach of rationalism and sceptical periods never last.

He exhorted us as to the importance of this moment for Christians - unless we have a biblical view of truth our faith will be vulnerable to quick dismissal. Truth is ultimately a matter not of philosophy but of theology.

For the west this means that if there is no truth everything is a matter of power games and manipulation. Education becomes just a matter of jumping through hoops to get your qualification. Also, freedom requires truth - not only freedom from, but positively, freedom for - and this is where Christianity comes in. We need to know who we are and what we are living for. The truth will set you free.

To answer the 'heavy sceptic', (following Peter Berger and Schaeffer) we must be able to 'relativise the relativiser' - point out where the relativist is holding on to an absolute somewhere, as he surely will. Positively, point people to signs of transcendence in their own lives - inconsistencies they cannot avoid as they are living in God's world. All of us are 'suppressing the truth' (Rom 1:18-20).

We must be people who shape our desires to the truth, not like Aldous Huxley (see Ends and Means) and others who shaped truth to their desires.

Truth he concluded is ultimately about the Lord - personal.

A full audio recording of this address is available on the Christian Heritage website from next week.