Receiving and Reflecting Light

This is the fourth post in my 4-Ls series introduced on March 9 and continued with articles about Life (March 30) and Love (April 20). I plan to conclude this series with a post about Liberty on May 30. But now, let’s focus on Light,  the third of the 4-Ls. 

Light is a pervasive symbol in world religions and has played a central role not only in Christianity but also in the histories of Judaism, Islam, and some Hindu and Buddhist traditions, including some new Japanese religions.*¹

Light and darkness are prevalent symbols in the Bible. The opening verses of the Gospel of John state, “What came into being through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light” (vv. 3b~5, CEB, bolding added).

“Word” is the translation of the Greek logos, which has a broad and deep meaning, expressed as Tao in China and as dharma in India. Thus, the light of the logos has enabled the Chinese to speak of Heaven, the Asian Indians to speak of Brahman, and the Native Americans to speak of the Great Spirit.

According to John’s Gospel, “The Word became flesh and made his home among us” (1:14). Further, John reports Jesus saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me won’t walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (8:12).

These words are best interpreted not in a narrow, exclusivistic sense but inclusively, seeing Jesus as the “cosmic Christ.”*²

In his epic poem Paradise Lost, John Milton in the 17^th century referred to Satan as “the Prince of Darkness,” the embodiment of evil. The Gospel of John says that the devil (=Satan) is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). By contrast, light dispels the darkness of ignorance and illuminates truth.

The English word enlightenment is often used to refer to a core emphasis in Hinduism and especially Buddhism, but the core idea of the Sanskrit words moksha and bodhi is more about being liberated and/or awakening rather than being enlightened.

A major intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe in the 17^th and 18^th centuries has long been called “the Enlightenment.” This new emphasis on using human reason and empirical science was an important development in human history.

But there was a basic problem: it was right in what it affirmed but wrong in what it denied. Yes, the light of reason is important for understanding the truth about the physical world. But the physical sciences can’t explain the truth about everything, especially the non-physical realm of reality.

Thus, my emphasis on the light of truth has long been, and still is, on faith and science rather than science without faith (or faith without science). It has also been on revelation and reason, rather than science without revelation (or revelation without science).*³ And I am convinced that “all truth is God’s truth.”

We are all called to receive and to reflect the light of truth. According to John, Jesus invited people to “believe in the light so that you might become people whose lives are determined by the light” (12:36). If our lives are determined by the light of truth, we will be an influence for good in the world.

This influence is not spread just by “religious” activity. Consider, for example, these notable people who reflected/reflect the light of truth in the world around them:

◈ Abraham Lincoln was a man whose remarkable life was determined by the light. Historian Jon Meacham’s nearly 700-page biography of Lincoln is titled And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (2022), and as he wrote in the Prologue, Lincoln “shed that light in the darkest of hours.”

◈ Ida B. Wells (1862~1931) was a noted civil rights activist and investigative journalist. In 2021, The Light of Truth: Ida B. Wells National Monument was unveiled in Chicago. The sculpture takes its name from Ms. Wells’s oft-quoted words, "The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."*⁴

◈ Ahmad Abu Monshar, a Palestinian man, and the Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Palestine have produced Light, a documentary film that premieres online on May 18. A CPT spokesperson invites us to join them in finding the light to carry us all through the long struggle toward justice. 

How can each of us become better receivers and reflectors of light?

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*¹ Mahikari (“true light”) is the name of a new Japanese religion, founded in 1959. and now with over one million members worldwide, including a Facebook friend Susan Nakao and her Japanese husband Koji who live in Pomona, Kansas (about 75 miles from my home in Liberty, Missouri), and head one of the Mahikari centers in the U.S.

*² This is an important claim about Jesus, and I invite you to read what I have written about this in past blogs (on 10/15/15 and 1/30/18) as well as briefly in my book The Limits of Liberalism (2010, 2020, pp. 232-3)

*³ I remain indebted to Swiss theologian Emil Brunner for his book titled (in English translation) Revelation and Reason: The Christian Doctrine of Faith and Knowledge (1946), one of the most important books I read as a seminary student. Offenbarung und Vernunft, the German edition, was originally published in 1941.

*⁴ My blog post on March 25, 2021, is partly about Ida B. Wells and mentions that a 2014 anthology of her writings is titled The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader.