You might have noticed that I haven’t written quite as much here at the Cottage since the election. I’ve been editing my next book — Freeing Jesus — which comes out in March.
I’ve been glad for the work because the news is so disheartening. When I’m writing, I’m not online or watching television as much as usual. In these weeks, I’ve been somewhat out of the news loop. When I have read the paper (yes, we get real newspapers at our house) or turned on cable, I can only barely believe what is reported. That Trump refuses to concede a race that he so clearly lost; that his administration is literally destroying federal agencies in order to undermine the next president; that Americans travelled during Thanksgiving in large numbers despite the massive surge in COVID infections and deaths; that Republican senators still live in fear of mean tweets from Trump; that there is no financial help from the government to abate the suffering wrought by the pandemic; that environmental crises continue unbated, unnoticed, often underreported. It is, in a word, a lot.
If you stop and reflect, it becomes apparent that a thread ties all these stories together — the loss of any notion of truth.
I’m as influenced by post-modernism as the next person, and I understand the cultural and experiential aspects of the thing we Western folks once knew as “truth.” But honestly, what is going on in our society is ridiculous, destructive, and dangerous. One can recognize the limits of truth-claims, the uncertainty of “objective” reality, and biases of scientific method without surrendering the modest notion that some things actually contribute to human flourishing, political common sense, and sensible stewardship of resources for a sustainable future.
We don’t even have that baseline at the moment. Whenever I go onto social media, I see people posting utter nonsense, photographs and videos that have been obviously manipulated, and reciting conspiracy theories that don’t even make sense within their own narratives.
Every day, I witness far right conservatives assert confidently that Joe Biden murdered his first wife in order to marry his babysitter, that most people who live in Washington DC are Satan worshipers and pedophiles, and insist that blogs and websites with no transparency and obvious agendas are more credible than those honoring journalistic ethics and genuine commitments to facts. Apparently, internet rabbit holes have become “research,” and even some college graduates can’t discern reliable information from online crap.
It isn’t that Trump has conned the American people. We’ve apparently conned ourselves, letting daily deceptions undermine everything from our politics to our health to our capacity for compassion.
So, even as I’m mourning the hundreds of thousands who have died of COVID, I’m also mourning the death of truth.
I’ve seen a few articles linking Trump’s ability to lie and his followers capacity to believe lies to Christianity — that evangelical religion laid the egg of incredulity that Trump somehow hatched. While that provides insight on some levels (especially in regard to Trumpism’s and the GOP’s rejection of science), I’m not entirely convinced. Indeed, while American evangelicalism bears some guilt for anti-intellectualism and the conspiracy mentality, Christianity itself has more often been (in Western society) the pathway toward truth.
Indeed, through history, Christians valued a quest for truth so profoundly that they pursued it even when what they discovered — in philosophy or science or medicine or psychology — undermined the very faith that set them on the way in the first place. People have forgotten that many (if not most) of the great universities in America and Europe were founded specifically by and for Christian intellectuals and clerics, that publishing itself began as a religious enterprise, and that much of today’s journalism descends directly from church and denominational newspapers in the 18th and 19th centuries. The shift of these institutions from distinctly dogmatic to nonreligious and pluralistic isn’t as much a decline as it is a testimony to the fearlessness of the Christian belief in truth as a sacred endeavor wherever it leads.
In the midst of all this, I’ve been stuck by the uses of “truth” in scripture. The words “true” and “truth” don’t appear as often as one might think, only a couple hundred times in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament. In both Hebrew (אֶמֶת) and Greek (ἀλήθεια) truth means faithfulness, steadiness, firmness, sureness, sincerely, and that which is dependable and real. In scripture, truth is a relational capacity; it is about what and who we can trust in a world that can be less-than-reliable. Not surprisingly, God is true. Not in the sense of factual or philosophical truth, but as the One who can be trusted and is trustworthy.
In the New Testament, Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” a claim that arises later with brutal irony when, at his trial, Pilate asks Jesus: “What is truth?” In his letters to early Christians, the Apostle Paul equates truth with peace, that the faithfulness and steadfast love of God — the One who is True — is that from which harmony, justice, and shalom can grow. Without truth, peaceableness is not possible.
If we reflect on what has happened in the last few years, I think we might be learning that. Truth isn’t just about shared data and facts. It is a sort of knowledge that is trustworthy, firm, and dependable. When this sense of fidelity is lost, or our belief in the possibility of truth is severed, we actually become so isolated and unmoored that we can’t find our way toward one another, much less toward a good society, or toward God. I’ve come to think of sin as gullibility — the belief in the con — that, in and of itself, divides and separates us, making love and peace impossible.
Healing the soul of the nation? It is going to have to start with a new commitment — however modestly or humbly we do so — to truth.
INSPIRATION:
Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
― George Orwell
Three things can not hide for long: the Moon, the Sun and the Truth.
― Gautama Buddha
There may not be one Truth—there may be several truths—but saying that is not to say that reality doesn’t exist.
—Margaret Atwood
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
—Phil. 4:8
Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment.
—Proverbs 12:19
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"I’ve seen a few articles linking Trump’s ability to lie and his followers capacity to believe lies to Christianity — that evangelical religion laid the egg of incredulity that Trump somehow hatched. While that provides insight on some levels (especially in regard to Trumpism’s and the GOP’s rejection of science), I’m not entirely convinced. Indeed, while American evangelicalism bears some guilt for anti-intellectualism and the conspiracy mentality, Christianity itself has more often been (in Western society) the pathway toward truth." A great article, but, none the less, Christianity cannot be considered a pathway toward truth as it has extensively laid the groundwork for generations to train people to believe in authority figures with unverifiable stories instead of science and data.
Thank you, thank you...Somedays it feels like I am an island in my thoughts. How can this be happening...at least a few share my concerns and disbelief. God feels so far away some days....