Bumper Sticker Religion:
A Letter from the Editor
Andrew Schuman
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I love reading bumper stickers. They have a way of taking complex ideas and compressing them into pithy phrases. The other day, I saw one that was especially thought-provoking: “God is too big for any one religion.”
There is a ring of truth here. After all, isn’t it plain that God, if He exists, would be beyond human understanding? Indeed, there is no way that any religion could completely encompass God. But just because religion is not bigger than God does not mean that God is too big for religion.
The curious thing about Jesus is that he made perhaps the boldest truth claims in the historical record. Not only did he claim to know all truth, he claimed to be truth. In the Gospel of John, Jesus proclaims: “I am the way and the truth and the life.”
Here at Apologia, we believe that Jesus was who he claimed to be. If Jesus’ claims are true, then unlike what the bumper sticker asserts, God is not beyond the capacity of human understanding at all. On the contrary, God entered human history for the express purpose of revealing Himself to us, that we might know Him.
When it comes to absolute truth claims, it is natural to be skeptical, and we don’t believe that true faith is blind faith. Just as Jesus invited his disciple Thomas to touch the wounds in Jesus’ hands and feet, and so believe in his resurrection, he welcomes our doubts and our rational investigation.
Andrew Schuman
Editor-in-Chief