Tommy Mann

I frequently write on the topic of truth because the concept of absolutes has been under attack in our country for several years. Many of our social and cultural problems stem from our rejection of truth. For example, I read last week that a man paid $20,000 to have himself turned into a border collie; through multiple surgeries, he is now the spitting image of Lassie (only much larger). How did we arrive here?   When we say there are no absolutes, a grown man named Dylan can say he is a six-year-old girl, and we have to respect that because that is “his truth.” When a male athlete wants to compete against females, he only needs to say his pronouns are she/her, and then he gets a gold medal.    If a man can be a woman, or a man can be an adolescent girl, then he can also be a dog. When truth goes out the window, we open the door for all types of lunacy. This is why the devil works so hard to undermine truth. The first two times we see him speak in Scripture, he asks Eve, ...

These days it has become popular to attach a possessive adjective to the word truth. One says,   You’ve just got to live your truth , while another says,   That may be right for you to believe, but this is my truth.   Your  truth?  My  truth? What ever happened to  the  truth? How I miss the indefinite article rather than the possessive adjective!    In his wonderful book  The Thrill of Orthodoxy,  Trevin Wax compared this way of thinking to the weather. “You may love the plentiful sunshine of a cloudless morning in late spring, or the gentle fall of snowflakes on a winter night. You may have your preferences, but you don't say  my  weather and  your  weather, because you're not in control. It's something that's there, something that happens, to which you must adapt.”   If we want sunshine and are dealt rain, we fool ourselves if we simply declare, “Well,  my  weather is sunshine!” That person...

Q. Do all religions lead to heaven? A. No; Jesus said He is the way, the truth, and life, and no one gets to the Father except through Him .   Some well-meaning people like to say that all religions eventually lead to heaven. “You have your religion, and I have mine; we’ll all make it in the end.” This sounds nice to people who are tired of religious bickering, but there is no way that can be a true statement. If two people are looking at a map, and one concludes a left turn is needed, and the other thinks they must turn right, they cannot both be correct at the same time. One has to be right, and the other has to be wrong. If two gods both claim to be the exclusive way to heaven, how can they both be right? Jesus said He is the way, the truth, and life, and no one gets to the Father any other way (John 14:6). That is either true or false. Christians believe Jesus is the only way to the Father, but Jews reject the Messianic claims of Jesus as they wait for...

Michael Gungor made headlines this week when he stated that he does not take the Bible literally. This revelation came after his Dove Award-winning (and Grammy-nominated) band Gungor had a show cancelled for that same reason. In an effort to explain himself, Gungor apologized if any fans were duped into thinking their Christian band had Christian beliefs. Taking a page out of the Emergent Church playbook, Gungor said, “We have always tried to be upfront about our wrestling with doubts and questions of faith.” That’s fine. Many people wrestle, and it often takes years for a person to really understand what they believe. But Gungor goes a step beyond mere wrestling with doubt. He stated, “NO REASONABLE PERSON takes the entire Bible completely literally (emphasis in original).” Well, Mr. Gungor, I am one of those reasonable people you say do not exist. In the same post Gungor makes clear that they are not young earth creationists (meaning they believe in Darwinian e...

           I’ve been very critical of the emerging church in some of these blogs, and some have accused me of not actually knowing what that movement is all about. For that reason I decided to write a review of the writings of some of these emergent leaders.      I have previously written about men like  Tony Campolo ,  Rob Bell , and  Mark Driscoll  so they won't be focused on in this post.       I have read, among other texts, Dan Merchant’s Lord Save Us From Your Followers, Dan Kimball’s The Emerging Church, Brad J. Kallenberg’s Live to Tell—Evangelism for a Postmodern Age, Erwin McManus’ The Barbarian Way and Wide Awake, and Donald Miller’s books Blue Like Jazz, To Own a Dragon, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and The Open Table.         My two favorites were books written by multiple authors (a community of them, perhaps). These books are An E...

“What is truth?” Pilate asked sarcastically. Jesus was on trial, and He explained to Pilate that He had come to “bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth hears my voice (John 8:37).” Pilate laughed off Jesus as if to say, “Can you really know the truth?” That same attitude has become the rhetorical question of many of the new churches today. Churches are billing themselves as “church for people who don’t like church” or places where “we don’t have it figured out.” The traditional churches that read and believe the Bible have come under fire for being arrogant knowers of theology, while these newer emerging churches boast of not knowing what the Bible is really all about. Sound doctrine has been replaced with fluidity, black and white issues are now in color, truth is not knowable, the Gospel is a mystery, and the commands of Scripture take a backseat to each person’s story. I will be the first to admit that the emerging church has rightly criticiz...