My undergraduate work was in English Literature, and so I tend to see the world in more literary terms. Ya, I’m sorta nerdy like that. One thing that I have really begun to see is the meta-narrative issue leading people astray. You probably have read that our good friend Rob Bell support same gender marriage. How did Rob get to this place? I think it’s the danger of the meta-narrative.
What happens with the meta-narrative is it connects all things into one big ongoing story. We are linked in one big plot progression. The danger of the meta-narrative is it makes the entire story dynamic. Simply stated, everything is connected and therefore can progress and change. This includes the interpretation of scripture and the redefinition of our value system. Homosexuality may have been a sin in Ancient Israel, but the meta-narrative says as time progresses, those values can change, and since God is love, He becomes more accepting.
We fall into danger when we begin to define God apart from His revelation of Himself. When God spoke to Moses and said I Am Who I Am, there was a definitive statement made, God just is. Time and space and values and opinions have no effect. God is not subject to the idea of the meta-narrative, and God is not progressive. There is nothing about God that needs too or will change, He just Is! The meta-narrative tries to put God as a character of the story who changes and learns and becomes more.
We can’t define or redefine God, and the truth of who God is will never change. We can toss to and fro with opinions, ideas, understandings, theologies, and creeds, but it will never change who God is. To find the truth I believe we must reject the notion of the meta-narrative with God as participant and embrace the unchanging, eternal, limitless and perfectly complete nature of I Am.