About the Author
So, who am I, the novice blogger Robert Overgaard, Sr.? Well, I can start by telling you that I’ve spent my career in ecclesiastical ministry. For 19 years, I served in parish ministry. For 14 years, I directed international missions for my denomination, relating to mission activities in four countries (two in Africa, two in Asia). And for 15 years I was the denominational president of a small Lutheran denomination with a big missionary heart.
In ordinary times, I wouldn’t consider blogging my way toward an essay, especially one about such difficult subjects. But these aren’t ordinary times. I have a growing concern that we in America and in many parts of the world (especially in Western Civilization) are caught in a destructive battle for truth and are losing this battle on many fronts. The battle is so basic because it is about truth itself. Current events give us a daily dose of this grim reality, but the forces that have put truth itself in the middle of the conflict didn’t originate in this decade.
So why should I at this stage of my life attempt to light a candle in this darkness?
The answer probably lies in the particular nature of my life experiences. These life experiences aren’t a sufficient basis from which to reason toward an answer, of course. Rather, they may have given me tools that could help “remove some dangerous weeds from the garden of human understanding,” as one of my teachers observed.
What particular experiences call me to write about the truth conflicts of our time? I think of it this way: I’ve spent a large part of my life at the “crunch points” where knowledge systems have clashed.
The first encounter with knowledge systems occurred in my family of origin. My life started in a home where the central way of knowing was theological. Everything else fit into a theological perspective on the human condition.
Then at 14, I read a book that my oldest brother had left on a shelf: The Will to Believe by William James. I was introduced to a new way to organize one’s understanding of the human condition: pragmatism. Although much of pragmatism overlapped the practical perspective of the Proverbs, I realized that this worldview had a different understanding of reality. The view was secular, a way of living with no reference to God.
Also, at this juncture, I had other reasons to challenge a theological centered life. Most of them were related to my discovery of sin (not just sins). I recognized a strong desire to go my own way. The apple tree is not an apple tree because it has apples; rather, because it is an apple tree, it has apples.
About that time, I had a God encounter that grounded my life on God in a deeper way. It marked a change of mind and a change of direction. It gave me a more comprehensive understanding of the human condition in relation to my Creator.
Subsequently, I have had significant opportunities to examine my thinking and the thinking of others, down to the presuppositional level. Thinking about different views of reality was the context of much of my work. Ministry to college/career young adults facing the challenges of navigating life in a pluralistic society was always a challenge. And, of course, there were the questions of confirmands! In addition, hours of conversations with missionaries, translators, linguists, and new Christians in other nations often drove the conversation down to the basic foundations and frameworks of reality.
On another level, setting polices for seminaries in places where the worldviews ranged from the sub-Sahara with the complex animistic belief in innumerable spiritual beings concerned with human affairs and capable of helping or harming human interests, to the hierarchically developed, but different religions of Japan and Taiwan was an exercise in listening and processing as civilizations collided. Leading in America since the cultural revolution, gives daily occasion to ask God what the Apostle Paul prayed for the Philippian church: for the love-knowledge to discern the things that really matter (Philippians 1:9).
One particular learning experience gave me tools for talking about conflicts between knowledge systems. In the 1960s I took several courses from Dr. Alburey Castell, then head of the philosophy department at the University of Oregon and author of a widely used text in logic. Dr. Castell was an adult convert to Christianity, not unlike C.S. Lewis and R.G. Collingwood. Castell enabled me to recognize absolute presuppositions, an effective tool for understanding knowledge systems in collision.
From my perspective, today we must understand the presuppositions of the Postmodern Movement’s ideology and method of sociopolitical change. The best way to understand this mentality is to compare it with the presuppositions of science and Christianity. Understanding the differences is the best hope of addressing the polarization of our times and the destabilization of our great institutions.
I invite you to join me in this journey toward understanding. Please comment. I can’t promise to answer each of them, but I will read them all and expect them to inform what I blog in important ways.
I am hoping your insight can help ‘crack the code’ to this very puzzling phenomenon of the different realities that all of us see happening in our various circles, each as convinced as the other, with totally disparate conclusions. Doesn’t it seem like we are dealing with more than just a ‘difference of opinion’, (where perhaps multiple people are seeing the same reality from a different angle)? It really does seem like a whole different reality that people are opining about. Where is the finding of common ground when you can’t agree on what’s real or not? It is distressing particularly in ‘evangelical’ (whatever that means now) circles where the incongruencies serve to challenge our very identities. I’m following with rapt attention!
Thanks, Ann, your comment is an encouragement as I am trying to get up and running. I expect to move at a bit faster pace and will welcome any comments as we go.
Looking forward to this study!