Caught between two worlds

One of the fascinating thing about study history is the chance to see patterns emerge that may lend insight into the world we live in today.  I understand that not everything would think this to be exciting, but I often find that an example or illustration from the past works wonders in helping people understand the present.
As I continue to read through Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, one of the things that keeps popping up is the contrast and conflict between men and women in Church history who desired certainty (in theology, morality, cultural norms, etc.) and those who valued ambiguity.  Sometimes the difference is one of personality; some people simply cannot abide ambiguity, they feel a deep need to categorize and label everything; others feel the opposite, being asked to take an either/or position makes them uncomfortable, it just feels wrong.  On top of differences of personality we have cultural differences.  Some cultures emphasize the need to take a stand, others value including multiple viewpoints.
Church history (and human history in general) has often been a case of two people who care about the same thing (on a host of different issues) not being able to see eye to eye because one is seeking certainty and the other is valuing ambiguity.
As you read this you may be thinking, "Of course we need certainty, only a Commie liberal would want that multi-cultural crap".  Or perhaps the opposite, "What kind of fascist jerk would assume he has all the answers to everything!"  That our politics often seems divided between similar viewpoints is no fluke.  Western Civilization is a combination of the heritage of two cultures: The Greek world of Plato and Aristotle, and the Jewish world of Moses, Jesus, and Paul.  The Greeks were forever seeking ultimate truth, unable to let an issue lie, they loved the constant questions necessary to peal away layers of uncertainty.  The Jewish mind on the other hand, disdained those who claimed to know it all in favor of consensus, including every opinion and letting a majority decide things but always leaving the back door open in case a change of mind was necessary down the road.  The very languages of which our Scriptures are comprised reflect that, the precision of Greek and the ambiguity of Hebrew shows itself in the very structure of the languages themselves.
As a result of our mix and match heritage, the Church (and Western Civilization) has always prized the search for ultimate Truth but at the same time has felt discomfort when we think we have found it.  We crave unity of opinion, but know that we should leave room for those who don't fit in.  We value diversity, but find ourselves hoping that all that diversity agrees with us.  Is it any wonder that there are more Christian denominations in existence today than we can even keep track of, and yet at the same time we still long for a universal big "C" Church to stand above the fray.
My own intellectual experience reflects these tendencies.  When I was younger I craved the neatness of certainty, but the more I learned and the more I experienced the more I came to realize that such textbook answers are rarely as cut and dried as people think.  When I was younger I hesitated to extend the term "Christian" to peoples and groups with whom I saw little in common, but as time went by I began to see the underlying bond we share beneath the surface disagreements.  In the end, I've come to a place where I can affirm ultimate Truth with confidence on the core issues of our faith (see I John, or better yet download and read my book for more on this topic) and yet remain open to the multiple of expressions of that faith that exist in the Church today.
Maybe you don't want to be caught between two worlds, maybe you want only one or the other, but I'm sorry to tell you that isn't an option.  Everything we think, say, and do is a product of our common heritage, a heritage God intended to be born of two worlds, a Hebrew Old Testament and a Greek New Testament.