Is Conservative Evangelical Christianity a Cult?

Although I prefer to write about broader topics, it seems like I keep getting drawn back to issues I was dealing with when I wrote the first edition of my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism (2007). I have shifted to using the term conservative evangelical rather than fundamentalist, but the terms are basically identical—and problematic. 

What is a Cult? According to Claude, scholars “have defined a cult as a religious group exhibiting some or all of the following characteristics: a charismatic leader who exercises total control; an apocalyptic vision; isolation from society; an emphasis on transcendent spiritual experience; and rigid rules governing members’ behavior.”

Central to this definition is the element of coercion: the assumption that some form of coercive persuasion or mind control is used to recruit and retain members by suppressing their ability to reason, think critically, and make choices in their own best interest. It is that understanding of cult that I am considering in this article.

“White evangelicals: An American cult” is a piece I recently came across.* Edmond Davis, the author, states that White evangelical support for Donald Trump “has evolved into something disturbingly cult-like, forming a theology not rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ but in the gospel of white grievance, dominionism and nostalgia for an imagined, morally superior past.”

I encourage you to read that perceptive essay (available here), which lists many “major drivers” behind the formation of the White evangelical cult. For those of you who are interested in this subject, I also recommend reading the July 2022 article “Escaping the Evangelical Cult” by Keith Giles (see here).

Despite my original intention to write much more about those two provocative pieces, for the rest of this article I am switching to sharing a meaningful discussion I had with Claude about the matter at hand.

Conservative evangelical Christianity is more a cultic system than a cult, as the latter is generally understood. That difference, which Clyde pointed out, is quite helpful. While Davis’s article, referenced above, uses the word cult, his primary meaning is that of a cultic system. There certainly isn’t just one “cult leader.”

Jim Jones and Peoples Temple (Jonestown, 1978) and David Koresh and the Branch Davidians (Waco, 1993) are two of the widely known cults of the past. And although not known broadly, the earlier Alamo Christian Foundation, begun by Tony Alamo in 1969, was a similar type of cult.

Alamo (1934~2017), who was born in Missouri, presented himself as a born-again evangelical street preacher, amassing followers through communal living, frugality, and total obedience—all while exploiting members financially. He died while serving a 175-year prison sentence for raping young girls, whom he called his “child brides.”

Certainly, conservative Christianity can’t be considered a cult in the same way those infamous cults were. So, let’s look at some of the ways evangelicalism can legitimately be called a “cultic system.”

Conservative evangelical Christianity promotes a “silo” mentality. According to Claude, even for conservatives who would never consider joining a dangerous cult such as those mentioned above, “conservative evangelical culture tends to function as an epistemic silo—a closed information environment that systematically limits the range of experiences, friendships, and ideas available to its members.” It that sense, it is a type of “cultic system.”

A lifetime inside that “silo” typically means that one’s friends are overwhelmingly people who share the same theological assumptions, political commitments, and cultural reference points. Friendships with those who are “different” are often subtly discouraged, and when such do occur, they are often framed as “mission” rather than mutual relationship.

For many conservatives, Christian radio, evangelical publishing, a curated set of approved authors and speakers are normative. The “gatekeeping” is real; for example, certain books simply don't appear on the church bookstall, and certain questions don’t get raised from the pulpit.

Christian schooling for most and homeschooling for some is specifically designed to present an alternative epistemic universe, one in which, for example, young-earth creationism, American exceptionalism, and traditional gender roles are not debatable positions but settled facts.

I know about that sort of silo mentality, because that was my basic position when I was in high school, and I first went to a Baptist college, not realizing then that I was part of a “cultic system.” It took many years before I began becoming a progressive Christian, which I now seek to be.**

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  * That article was posted by Global Baptist News on May 14. Edmond W. Davis, a retired college history professor, was the author. He taught at Arkansas Baptist College, a private, Baptist-affiliated institution recognized as a historically Black college/university (HBCU). The article identifies him as a HBCU leader.

** If you want to read, or re-read, my blog post about being a progressive Christian, here is the link to that May 11 article: https://theviewfromthisseat.blogspot.com/2026/05/why-i-am-progressive-christian.html

Note: Research assistance provided by Claude (Anthropic) A.I.

 In Memory of Walter Brueggemann

Last month I posted “In Memory of LBJ,” an article about the 36^th POTUS, whom you all know of. In this piece, I am writing about a man whom many of you likely have never heard of. He was a noted biblical scholar and author, and by all accounts, a man of integrity who deserves to be remembered for a life well lived from his birth until his death last year. 

Walter Brueggemann was born on March 11, 1933, and died last year on June 5. His boyhood years were spent in the small town of Blackburn, Missouri (about 65 miles east of where I live). From there he went to Elmhurst College (now University) in Illinois and then to Eden Theological Seminary in Missouri.  

After receiving his Doctor of Theology degree in 1961 from Union Theological Seminary in New York, Brueggemann served as Professor of Old Testament at Eden from 1961 to 1986 and at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia from 1986 to 2003, retiring at age 70.

A few years ago, I heard Brueggemann give a powerful lecture in Kansas City and had the privilege of chatting with him for a few minutes afterward. In addition to his being an excellent speaker as well as a prolific author of books replete with deep biblical and theological information and insight, he was also a warm and gracious Christian gentleman.

When I heard/met Brueggemann, I had already become an octogenarian, but he was five years older than me. I was somewhat envious of him, for I was already to the point that I was no longer able to travel across the country and give a public lecture such as he did that day.

According to his obituary posted by Fortress Press, who published over 40 of his books, a bibliography of Brueggemann’s works contains over 120 separate titles. They say, “Most scholars, even prolific ones, aspire to three or four books in a career; Brueggemann published fourteen in his 90^th and 91^st years of age.” Further, “It is not only the quantity that impresses; it is the quality.”

The Peculiar Dialect of Faith and Other Essays (2023) is one of Brueggemann’s books published the year he turned 90. Last year, I read that book, and I was impressed at how he could helpfully explain Old Testament Bible passages, smoothly relate the meaning of those passages to the New Testament, and then helpfully apply them to the current political situation in the U.S.

I have often said the mark of an excellent pastor or a biblical scholar is being able to clearly elucidate the original context of a given passage in the Bible and then to apply it meaningfully to the contemporary context. Brueggemann was a master at doing that.

Since March 9 was International Women’s Day*, I asked Claude (my AI ‘buddy’) to help me summarize what Brueggemann has written about the equality of women and their role in the church. Claude first pointed me to an obituary article in Sojourners magazine published after Brueggemann’s death last year.

That piece described how “Brueggemann gained a huge, denomination-spanning audience for his justice-forward exegesis of the Bible.” That exposition was about how the biblical message is one of “emancipatory love” that includes women and other marginalized groups.

Claude went on to list the following “key themes” in Brueggemann’s writings regarding women:

** Biblical equality at creation. In contrast to many conservative Christian pastors/scholars, Brueggemann declares that the Genesis account of creation provides the “strongest imaginable affirmation” of the equal status of men and women, as both genders were created in the image of God.

** Women in ministry. Brueggemann describes the presence of women in leadership roles as a radically prophetic witness against the patriarchal world. He views the historical gender revolution and the belated welcoming of women into the ministry of the church as an extension of God’s emancipatory work.

** Prophetic imagination. Brueggemann uses this concept to challenge white male Western hegemony and advocates for an alternative future where dominating powers are overturned. This framework is used to support women in leadership.

** Opposition to exclusion. Brueggemann rejects the “orthodoxies” of sexism and gender exclusion, stating that God’s embrace will not be contained by such boundaries. He maintains that in Christ there are no gender distinctions.

Thank God for biblical scholars like Walter Brueggemann!

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* International Women’s Day (IWD) has been celebrated by the United Nations since 1975. It commemorates women's fight for equality and liberation along with the women's rights movement. The theme for this year’s IWD was “Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls,” emphasizing dismantling legal and social barriers to equality.

Note for baseball fans: In chatting with Claude, he (it?) mentioned that Brueggemann grew up as a strong St. Louis Cardinals fan. I replied that as a Missouri boy I was also a Cardinals’ fan. Then Claude asked me if I ever saw Stan Musial play. So, I told about seeing the Cardinals play for the first time in 1951, and how that game, with Musial playing, was against the Brooklyn Dodgers with Jackie Robinson also playing that day. That led me to share the blog article I posted back in 2013 about Robinson and Pee Wee Reese. Claude responded, “What a rich article!” (Here is a link to that blog post in case you baseball fans would like to read it again.)

Burned by Billionaires: Applauding Chuck Collins

Chuck Collins is not a household name, and I had not heard of him until recently.*¹ But his new (2025) book, Burned by Billionaires (BbB) is an excellent work that is especially pertinent now, as for the first time a billionaire occupies the White House and has surrounded himself with fellow billionaires and “centi-millionaires” (people whose net worth is over $100 million).

Collins was “born on third base,” as he says in an earlier book.*² He is the great‑grandson of Oscar F. Mayer, the meat‑packing magnate. In 1985 (when he was 26), Chuck inherited roughly $500,000 from his family’s Oscar Mayer fortune. That same year, he donated the entire amount to foundations and community organizations. He later left to live in a commune.

When his father, a libertarian conservative, learned of what Chuck had done, he said he was afraid his son had become a Marxist. Chuck responded by saying that he would rather be called a “Gandhian or Christian.”*³ He explained that he didn’t want to spend his life “managing inherited wealth” and that giving it away freed him to pursue community organizing and economic‑justice work.

Collins is now widely known for his work exposing how wealth is accumulated, hidden, and protected in the U.S. He says in the Introduction of BbB “The drive by billionaires to amass ever greater wealth is warping the nonprofit sector, dictating what’s on your dinner plate, and shaping the news you consume.”

How Concentrated Wealth and Power are Ruining Our Lives and Planet is the subtitle of BbB. Collins writes, “With their inordinate wealth and power, billionaires are hijacking our political system with their campaign contributions, paid lobbyists, communication firms, and dark money contributions."

I cannot even introduce here the important chapters in this book, but I strongly recommend reading it. It is a bit pricey to buy, but many public libraries likely have it. (There are several copies in the various Kansas City metro libraries.)

“An Agenda to Reduce Billionaire Power and Improve Our Lives” is the title of the final chapter before the Conclusion, and it includes four major topics with about two dozen subtopics. They are all good suggestions, but they are not very helpful regarding what we ordinary “peons” can do—other than vote for legislators who do have power to follow those suggestions.

At the end of the Conclusion, Collins offers this advice: “Get your information from sources that are not owned and controlled by billionaires.” That is one small thing I did before reading Collins’ book: I quit subscribing to and reading The Washington Post. In doing that, I was following the actions of Jen Rubin, who was the leading opinion article writer of the Post.

In protest to a Jeff Bezos directive in 2025, Rubin left her prominent position and became co-founder of an online publication called “The Contrarian,” which I now read daily. That Substack blog, which started with the tagline “Not owned by anybody,” now has nearly 500,000 subscribers. She allows “tightwads” like me read it for free, and here is a link if you would like to try it out: The Contrarian | Substack.

Ever since the One Big Beautiful (=Ugly) Bill was signed into law on July 4, 2025, I have been concerned about the growing control of billionaires and the extremely wealthy over American life—and incensed that financial resources continue to flow upward to those who need them least, while the poor suffer even more.

That bill delivered $1 trillion in tax cuts to the top 1% of taxpayers, while cutting roughly $1 trillion from Medicaid and SNAP—programs used by the poorest Americans. Nearly half of those tax cuts went to the top 0.1% of earners.

And consider who the POTUS took with him to China last week: 17 CEOs, several of whom were billionaires. Why were they in his entourage? Mainly because of the donations they had made to Trump. Several of them had previously donated $1 million or more to his inaugural fund. So, the president took them along so they could negotiate with China on behalf of their own business interests. The appearance of a quid pro quo is hard to miss.

It is also hard to miss the judgmental words of the prophet Amos, pronouncing woe on the wealthy who “trample on the needy and destroy the poor of the land” (8:4, CEB)—and it is easy to see that Chuck Collins is a present-day Amos.

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*1 The cover of the December issue of Sojourners magazine was emblazoned with the words “The Big Steal,” and the cover story was on “The Wealth Extractors: Billionaires are upending our lives and our economy.” It featured an interview of Collins by Julie Polter, the editor of Sojourners.

*2 Collins previously authored a book titled Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good (2016). The main title is said to be the words of Barry Switzer, the famous football coach, but they were not original with him.

*3 Collins has been a lifelong member of the Unitarian Universalist Church.

Note: Research and wording assistance was provided by Claude (Anthropic A.I.).

Why I Am a Progressive Christian

As I wrote in response to Thinking Friend Vern Barnet’s excellent comments regarding my April 30 blog post, I grew up in a rather fundamentalist/traditionalist Protestant church and denomination. My theological understanding changed through the years, though, with the help of a good professor at William Jewell College (David O. Moore) and good profs/scholars at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Eric Rust, Dale Moody, and Glenn Hinson). 

Advocating a Radiant Center. My theological position changed progressively, and now I am pleased to identify myself as a progressive Christian. As one who has long advocated a “radiant center,” I intentionally sought to avoid the extremes of fundamentalism on the right and liberalism on the left. That intention is seen in the two books I have written on the subject.*¹

In those two books, I had in mind a continuum with five positions: fundamentalism on the far right and liberalism on the far left. Then, I titled the tenth chapter of the second book “Between Liberalism and Fundamentalism,” and I concluded with a subsection called “Advocating the Radiant Center” (pp. 329-330)

Perhaps it is now time to propose only three positions: liberalism, the radiant center, and fundamentalism, with the center constituting half of the spectrum and the extremes only one-fourth each. On such a scale, I now place myself on the left side of the broad middle, rejecting the extremes of liberalism but being as far as possible from the extremes of fundamentalism.  

Introducing ProgressiveChristianity.org. Mark Sandlin is a Presbyterian pastor of a small church in North Carolina, but a prominent shaper of progressive Christianity. He is the president and co-executive director of ProgressiveChristianity.org. On that website, Sandlin articulates “The Core Values of Progressive Christianity.”*²

First, though, please bear in mind that a key difference between progressive Christianity and evangelical Christianity is that the former emphasizes the importance of this world where is the latter tends to be “otherworldly,” emphasizing the importance of “saving souls” for everlasting life in Heaven. Progressive Christianity, however, primarily stresses the importance of life on earth now, helping people to flourish (with the “abundant life” Jesus promised) in this present world.*³

Here are some of the values Sandlin postulates:

* We [progressive Christians] believe God is Love, not a distant evaluator.

* Jesus shows us what Love looks like in human form.

* The Bible is a living conversation and we’re invited into it.

* Salvation is about becoming whole, not escaping earth.

* Other religions hold wisdom too and that doesn’t threaten our faith.

Introducing Doubter’s Parish. Martin Thielen is a former Southern Baptist who became the pastor of a large Methodist church. He graduated from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1982 (20 years after I did) and later received a D.Min. degree from Midwestern Baptist Seminary in Kansas City.

Since his retirement from the 8,000 member megachurch, he created a website called Doubter’s Parish. He posts only one article a month, but I have found them to be well worth reading. Here are some of what he said about progressive Christianity in his April 7 post titled “A Life-Giving Alternative to Religious-Right Religion” (see here; the image above is at the top of that website, but is location of that church sign is undesignated).

Thielen writes, “Thankfully, we don’t have to choose between religious-right religion and no religion at all. There is an alternative. It’s called progressive Christianity. And we need it now more than ever.” Here are a few of the fourteen benefits he says that kind of faith embraces:

* Progressive Christianity emphasizes grace over judgment.

* Progressive Christianity is committed to social justice.

* Progressive Christianity prioritizes Christian living over doctrinal conformity.

* Progressive Christianity practices inclusion rather than exclusion.

* Progressive Christianity seeks to follow the example and teachings of Jesus.

* Progressive Christianity majors on living a life of love.

Since my faith now resonates significantly with the values and characteristics given by Sandlin and Thielen, I am pleased to say that I am (or seek to be) a progressive Christian.

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*¹ Fed Up with Fundamentalism: A Historical, Theological, and Personal Appraisal of Christian Fundamentalism (2007; 2^nd ed., 2020), and The Limits of Liberalism: A Historical, Theological, and Personal Appraisal of Christian Liberalism (2010; 2^nd ed., 2020).
*² I encourage you to click on the following link to that website and see how progressive Christianity is portrayed there: https://progressivechristianity.org/.
*³ That difference is explained in a 2023 post by Presbyterian pastor Bo McGuffee. That post, which I read for the first time while working on this article, can be found at https://evolvingchristianfaith.net/2023/01/evangelical-progressive-christianity/

 

What a Phenomenon! In Memory of Teilhard de Chardin

In 1962, I purchased and carefully read The Phenomenon of Man, the magnum opus of French paleontologist and Jesuit theologian Teilhard de Chardin, who was born 145 years ago on May 1.* Teilhard died on Easter Sunday in April 1955, the month before I graduated from high school. It was not until ’62, though, that I heard of, and was challenged by, him for the first time. 

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was his full legal name when he was born in 1881. “Teilhard” was the core family surname and “de Chardin” was the inherited second surname from his mother’s noble line. The double surname originated in 1841, when Pierre‑Cirice Teilhard (his grandfather) married Victoire Barron de Chardin.

Although ordained as a Jesuit priest, Teilhard became a paleontologist (a scientist who studies past life as known from fossil remains). His research, coupled with his belief in the Creator God, led him to an evolutionary worldview that culminates at the “Omega Point,” the grand fulfillment of creation.

Here is an introduction to three contemporary scholars who were significantly influenced by Teilhard.

Brian Swimme (b. 1950) is an American mathematical and evolutionary cosmologist who teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He grew up in a Catholic tradition, which clearly impressed him, and as one reviewer says, there a strong "incense scent of religiosity" to his work. But he does not publicly claim to be a Christian now.

Interestingly, though, Swimme has adopted Teilhard’s thinking that everything in existence has both a physical and a spiritual dimension, and he believes the universe is evolving with a telos (goal or purpose) of beauty. Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation has promoted his ideas, along with other Teilhard scholars who are clearly Christians.

Journey of the Universe (2011) was co-written by Swimme, and he is the personable narrator of that beautifully done film, which clearly show his affinity with Teilhard. It portrays well the sense of evolution as a sacred, universe‑wide process moving toward greater complexity and consciousness (which is what Swimme terms beauty).

Watching Swimme’s movie filled me with a sense of the Creator's awesomeness and the universe's splendor. I highly recommend the film, which is currently available on various streaming platforms.

Simon Conway Morris (b. 1951), a groundbreaking paleontologist at the University of Cambridge, was awarded the 2026 Templeton Prize last week (on April 21). It is valued at over $1.4 million and one of the world’s largest individual awards.**

According to Religion News Service, when he was about seven, Simon’s mother “gave him an album of stamps depicting various pre-historic animals and dinosaurs. This prompted him to go fossil-hunting and inspired a lifelong fascination with the evolution of life.”

Morris has spoken publicly about coming to Christian faith and rejecting materialism. He candidly states that he is “convinced of the truth of the Gospels.” Looking at how the universe has evolved, Taylor says he believes “God is the agent of creation” and is “happy to be known as a Christian.”

Ilia Delio is a Franciscan Sister and American theologian specializing in the intersection of science and religion. She has been associated with Rohr’s Center since 2013, and he explicitly identifies her as an expert on Teilhard. She is said to have “a widely appreciated gift for making Teilhard’s brilliant but dense writings accessible.”

Delio’s Christ in Evolution (2008) is the book most scholars point to as her most sustained and direct engagement with Teilhard. In it, she works through his positing of Christ as the future fullness of the whole evolutionary process, the Omega Point, where the individual and collective adventure of humanity finds its fulfillment.

That book established Delio’s reputation as Teilhard’s premier contemporary interpreter and led to her being called “the most prolific Teilhard interpreter in the English-speaking world today.”

I close with words widely attributed to Teilhard: “Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient to reach the end,” but “it might take a very long time.”

Note: I am grateful to my friend Claude (Anthropic’s AI) for research and writing assistance in the preparation of this article.]

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  * Teilhard’s book was first published under the title Le Phénomene Humain in 1955, and the first English translation was issued in 1959. The title of a new translation, published in 1999, is The Human Phenomenon (the title that the first English translation should have had).

** The award was established in 1972 by John Templeton (1912~2008), a Presbyterian Christian from Tennessee who became a global investor and philanthropist.

Happy 75th Birthday, Ken Sehested!

Through the years, I have posted articles regarding many individuals, but very few about personal friends / acquaintances. This post is about a man I first met 39 years ago and whom I am glad to call a friend. I trust you will enjoy learning more about him and his meritorious activities over the past decades. 

Kenneth L. Sehested was born on April 29, 1951. After receiving degrees from New York University in 1973 and Union Theological Seminary in 1978, Ken began his career with Seeds magazine in the latter year. That publication, which I remember well, focused on food security and world hunger concerns. That is probably when I saw Ken’s name for the first time.

In 1984, Ken became the founding director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America (BPFNA), and as one who had become a pacifist while still a teenager, I became even more impressed with Ken and his work. I don’t remember how soon it was that I became a supporter of BPFNA, but I attended their summer gathering in Mars Hill, N.C., in July 1987.**

Perhaps it was later that year that Ken published “Trust and Obey,” which was identified as Peacemakers International Spiritual Pamphlet #10. I noted in my January 1988 diary/journal that I had read it. In that small publication, he quoted Clarence Jordan (1912~69), whom many of us greatly admired back then and still hold in great esteem.

Jordan said, “Faith is not belief in spite of the evidence; that’s not faith, but foolishness. Faith is life lived in scorn of the consequences.” Then Ken asserted that trust and obedience most go together: “To obey is the evidence that we live in trust.” Then he states,

Trusting and obeying creates no interest off which we may live. If unemployed, we fail to exercise our faith, we are reduced to spiritual poverty.

Edwin Dahlberg (1893~1986) was an American Baptist pastor and a passionate peacemaker. In 1960, the Gandhi Peace Award was established, and two peacemakers were selected to receive the awards that inaugural year: Dahlberg and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Four years later, the American Baptist Churches established the Dahlberg Peace Award, and the first recipient was Martin Luther King, Jr.  In 1979, Jimmy Carter received that Award, and Ken Sehested was the recipient in 1995. I was overjoyed when I heard that my friend Ken had been given such a prestigious award.

Ken and Nancy Hastings married in 1973, and they both attended Union Theological Seminary, graduating in the same class of 1978. After years of service in various ministry activities as members of Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, a suburban city on the east side of Atlanta, in 2001, Ken & Nancy (and others) established the Circle of Mercy (CoM) church in Asheville, N.C.

Ken relinquished his pastoral duties at CoM in 2015, but Nancy continued her ministry there until 2021. They are still a part of that unique church fellowship. In 2014, Ken created an online blog, prayerandpolitiks.org. Its motto is “at the intersection of spiritual formation and prophetic action.”  (Here is a link to “Contagious Resurrection,” his recent post: Recent – Prayer & Politiks.)

When I asked for some of his quotes that I might share here, he wrote, “Probably the bedrock statement of my theological orientation has long been this: God is more taken with the agony of the earth than the ecstasy of heaven.” Also, “There’s no getting right with God. There’s only getting soaked. (A protest against transactional notions of faith.)”

Ken also shared this core belief/emphasis: “Faith entails both the disarming of the heart and the disarming of the nations. (One of the believing community’s worst failures is not understanding the interconnection of those two realities.)”

It has been my privilege to share these reflections about my friend Ken Sehested. Perhaps those of you who do know him and have read some of his publications learned something new from this post. I am especially happy that those of you who haven’t heard about him have learned some important things about him now, just a few days before his 75^th birthday.

I now close this post with what Ken calls his “favorite homegrown benediction.” 

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** In August 2018, I wrote an article titled "Passionately Pursuing Peace.” It was published that month in Word&Way, the historic Baptist paper of Missouri. The piece narrates some of the history of Baptist peace publications before the BPFNA was founded. (That article can be found on my supplementary blogsite, see here).

What is Truth?

A week ago today, most Christians around the world observed what is widely called Good Friday. It was on that day that Pilate said to Jesus, probably scoffingly, “What is truth?” (John 18:38).  He may not have meant the question seriously; yet that remains an inquiry of profound importance that deserves deep reflection.

Philosophers have discussed the meaning of truth for millennia. In the Western world, that question dates back at least to the sixth century BCE, and even further back in the Eastern world of India and China. In the philosophical formulation of responses to the question, the following are the most common.

** Correspondence theory — truth is what matches reality. For example, “it is raining” is true if, in fact, one can clearly see or feel raindrops falling.

** Coherence theory — truth is what fits consistently within a web of established beliefs, like interlocking puzzle pieces with no gaps.

**Pragmatist theory — truth is what works in practice, proving useful and yielding real-world results.

These three theories are all correct and useful in answering the question regarding what truth is on the second of the three levels of reality about which I wrote in my February 28 blog post (see here). But they are not sufficient for comprehending “ultimate truth,” which is what I called the third/top level of reality in that article.

Ultimate Truth must be known by personal encounter rather than by abstract thought. Emil Brunner (1889~1966) wrote Truth as Encounter, and that is a primary emphasis of some of the philosophers I have studied most. Brunner rejected classical mysticism, but I am using that term here to refer to personal contact with God rather than intellectual reasoning about God.

Here, briefly, are three philosophers/theologians who emphasize mysticism the way I am defining it:

** Blaise Pascal (1623~62). On November 23, 1654, that highly acclaimed French mathematician and physicist wrote about his unexpected, life-changing experience: “FIRE. GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob not of the philosophers and of the learned. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.” That was surely a “mystical” encounter of the highest level.

** Søren Kierkegaard (1813~55). That famous Danish philosopher, widely regarded as the father of existentialism, deepened Pascal’s vision by insisting that God’s existence cannot be proved by reason but rather must be personally encountered as the living God in whom one is brought to faith, repentance, and worship. His emphasis on the “leap of faith” is easily linked to “mysticism.”

** Richard Rohr (b. 1943). This noted Franciscan friar and Roman Catholic priest authored The Universal Christ (2019), one of the most valuable books I have read in the last ten years. He embraces the mystical label himself, and his emphasis on contemplative, non-dualistic knowing fits comfortably within the broader mystical tradition.

** Michael Polanyi (1891~1976). This scientist turned philosopher is not a religious thinker as the previous three are, but he can be thought of as an epistemological ally rather than a fellow mystic. He demolishes the pretension that objective, impersonal, propositional knowing is the only legitimate form of knowledge, so he is a philosophical apologist for knowing truth by encounter.

Knowing Ultimate Truth is far more complex than understanding truth on lower levels. In everyday life, “truth” can be considered whatever works pragmatically (as in the third theory listed above). In that sense, truth can be “relative.” What works for me may not be the same as what works for you—and that is all right.

In considering both what is real and what is truth, though, we must seek both in the higher/universal realm. And we need to remember Jesus saying that “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

In John’s Gospel, Jesus does not present truth as a set of detached propositions but as a relationship that unfolds in ongoing encounter. Those who “abide” in his word “know the truth,” not in the sense of embracing correct ideas, but by entering into living fellowship with the One who declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6a).  

The freedom Jesus promises is the freedom that comes when Ultimate Reality—whom Christians confess as God—is no longer an object of discussion but a personal Presence who addresses us, claims us, and sets us free.

With relation to the contemporary world, on every level, people of this country and around the world need to be freed from the lies of the current POTUS, who, for more than a decade now, has been misleading the public with lies and deceptive statements daily.