Truth War Conference Notes: Part One

I am starting a series on the blog that will be made up of notes that I took from the Truth War Conference that Dad and I attended last November. (You can read an overview of our trip here.) The group of posts will consist of five sets of notes that I took from each session of the conference. The series is going to start off with Phil Johnson's session titled: 
Can Truth Survive in a Postmodern Society?

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Truth requires us to acknowledge God.

1. 2 Timothy 3:1-7
2. 2 Corinthians 10

Society believes Truth can't be known, so Truth does not matter.

Modernism began in 1850 and lasted until 1980. Modernism is opposed to anything supernatural. Postmodernism is the death of modernism and began in the 80's.


Progress of Western Thought:

1. Premodern

• Covers a span of 2500 years
• There is an objective ultimate truth.
• Supernatural; Reality is not just what is visible
• Authority is from God; Along with ultimate truth there is an ultimate authority.

2. Modern 

• Spans 250 years
• There is still an objective ultimate truth
• Anti-supernatural; Supernatural is irrelevant in the search for truth
• Authority is from science and human reason
• Thomas Payne helped bring forth modernity
• All socialist experiments have their roots in modernism

3. Postmodern

• Postmodernism began in 1980 and is still going today
• Objective ultimate truth is unknowable 
• Mystical supernatural; People go by feelings. Reality is a subjective perception of ones mind
• There is no ultimate truth. God is without authority.  

Christianity is not premodern, modern, or postmodern. 

Secular philosophy always gets worse. As a result, western thought is becoming more hostile to Christianity.


Postmodernism is hostile to any worldview that makes a claim to truth.

Postmodernism is also known by deconstructionism. Where instead of wanting to know truth, they only want to eliminate certainty. Postmoderns thinks that certainty is intolerance.


Christianity has always been opposed to the wisdom of the world.

Truth War Overview

The conference was held at Springs of Life Bible Church. Everyone at the church was very kind and welcoming. If you were wondering where The Infamous Turkey Pineapple came from, the mystery is now solved! It came from The Truth War Conference. They had a turkey pineapple set up at each table. And I most certainly cannot forget to mention that they provided meals for each attender of the conference. It was the best food I have ever had at a conference! 

Phil Johnson started off the conference. He was then followed by James White. And Andy Davis went third.
Phil Johnson's three sessions were:

• Can Truth Survive in a Postmodern Society?
• Truth and The Emerging Church
• Constrained into Conflict: Why We Must Fight For the Faith

James White's three sessions were:

• The Devastating Consequences of Contemporary Preaching
• The Cross and Islam
• Can We Trust the New Testament Documents?

I was not able to get Andy Davis' picture. (He was very busy.) And I failed once again, because I did not get to here the last session that he did. (Dad and I had to leave right after James White's last session in order to make it home before 10PM.) But here are Andy Davis' first two sessions:

• The Infinite Journey of Christian Growth
• The Old Perspective on Paul: The Doctrine of Imputation  

The Truth War Conference was a very humbling experience for me. Never before in my life have I been around so many men who knew so much about theology. I would occasionally eavesdrop on a conversation between pastors and had no idea what they were talking about! All the men there were very brilliant. They could all read Greek as if they were reading English! In one of James White's sessions, he put up a passage of Scripture in Greek and just started translating it into English!! I was amazed.


Even though it was very humbling and discouraging. At the same time I realized that these men had been trained and dedicated their lives to something they believed in. I realized that the level of knowledge and spiritual maturity that they had attained is actually possible for anyone who puts forth the effort. So in another sense it was also an encouraging experience as well.


Andy Davis' second session was my favorite session at the conference. His second session was about the doctrine of imputation. It also dealt with how the New Perspective on Paul movement essentially says that Paul didn't mean what he clearly says in Scripture. They also say that faith is a badge of our righteousness. The whole session was very good, but just the thought of these three things had to be my favorite part of his session:

1. The imputation of Adam's sin on us.
2. The imputation of our sins onto the Savior.
3. The imputation of Christ's righteousness into our account.

Like I said in the title, this is just an overview of the conference. I'm wanting to put together my notes and my Dad's notes and post them onto the blog. I would probably do a post for each session so that its not some uber post.But, I still have other things I'm working on. So that might not be for a while. Just to round off the post, I'm going to add some photos from our trip down to North Carolina. ENJOY!

In Case You Were Wondering...

If you have been wondering why I haven't posted anything for 4 or 5 days now, I have some reasons. And if you weren't wondering, you will find out anyway. These past two weeks have been fairly busy for me. Last week I was working on a book review that I will be posting soon. But that still isn't ready and doesn't seem like it ever will be. Secondly, My Dad and I are going to The Truth War conference in Durham, NC on the 21st and 22nd. So I have been doubling up on my schoolwork so I won't get behind. This Thursday we will be leaving for North Carolina. The conference is on Friday and Saturday, and Saturday afternoon we will make our way back to Ohio and should get home around 1 A.M. Sunday morning.