Courage to Proclaim, Openness to Critique

"[One] requirement I would suggest for a missionary encounter with our culture is simply the courage to hold and to proclaim a belief that cannot be proved to be true in terms of the axioms of our society. This may sound simplistic, but it is not. Our modern scientific culture has pursued the ideal of a completely impersonal knowledge of a world of so-called facts that are simply there, that cannot be doubted by rational minds, and that constitute the real world as contrasted with the opinions, desires, hopes, and fears of human beings, a world in which the words purpose and value have no meaning. This whole way of trying to understand the totality of human experience rests on beliefs that are simply not questioned. For every attempt to understand and cope with experience must rest on some such belief. Every such belief is, of course, open to critical question, but no criticism is possible except by relying on other beliefs that are - in the act of criticizing - exempt from criticism."


Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 148 (emphasis mine)