[This letter was printed in the Christian Standard in addition to the Restoration Herald.  Comments follow.]

As elders of Steele’s Chapel Christian Church, Corbin, Kentucky, we felt compelled to write after reading and hearing negative comments concerning articles written by our minister, Jonathan Huddleston, which appeared in CHRISTIAN STANDARD late last year ("Confessions of a Postmodernist," September 12; "Clarifying My Position," November 28).

Our congregation was established in 1876, and we have continuously met as an independent, nondenominational, New Testament church since that time.

When we read brother Huddleston’s articles we too had questions. We met with him and reconfirmed that he believed without hesitation that the Bible contains the infallible, inspired word of God. He explained that, in his mind, there is a distinction between absolute truth and truth. The statement in his article — "No mere words deserve to be called absolute truth" — was premised on his belief that the Lord is the absolute truth because he (God/Jesus/Spirit) is not dependent on a higher being or authority for power. Amen! In contrast, the Scriptures derive their power from the Lord. Thus, in his mind, the Scriptures are "true and absolutely true" (i.e., without error and not subject to doubt), but not the "absolute truth" because the Lord alone is the absolute truth.  Again, he emphasized that by making this distinction he was only trying to point out that the power of Scripture is derivative in that it is empowered through the Lord, whereas the Lord’s power is supreme (it is not derivative of any other authority or being).

We explained that we believed this to be a "splitting the hairs" point that we felt would be subject to misunderstanding — and a point that didn’t really need to be made — but, nonetheless, as the article had already been published, we would deal with the fallout.

We also questioned his article’s reference to doubting "traditional moral ideals." He explained that he only meant that "traditional morality" (i.e., manmade morality) wasn’t necessarily consistent with biblical teachings. He confirmed that he firmly supported the morality taught and applied in the Scriptures, and that he had not meant to imply that he questioned biblical morality.

—MARION PARKEY AND TODD CHILDERS
Corbin, Kentucky

Kent comments -

While I could be reading this wrongly, it appears that, when confronted by the elders at the church where he serves, Postmodern Jon does a bit of squirming. While some of this has been said before in another essay, it bears repeating that words from God are perhaps best not called ‘mere words’ - regardless of what postmodernists think.

The Bible doesn’t just "contain" the word of God - it IS the word OF GOD! (I’m not even sure how best to present those words to convey the force required here - but I tried, as you can see.) God’s self-revelation of both His nature and His workings in history is not relative to anything, and is therefore rightly called "absolute truth."

These kinds of matters make ‘postmodernism’ not just some goofy, off-beat, point-of-view it might at first appear to be. It is instead a dangerous perspective that is at odds with the historic Christian faith. It is a perspective that distorts that nature of scripture, the word of God written.

I’m guessing that the subtleties of postmodernism don’t make it into many sermons down around Corbin, Kentucky. But if I were Bishops Parkey and Childers, I wouldn’t sleep through too many of Postmodern Jon’s sermons. If he will say what he said in the Christian Standard he might say almost anything.