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.

True or False?

“Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most.” Those are words from the movie Secondhand Lions. At the end of last month, Thinking Friend Anton Jacobs shared that statement and related comments with me and a few mutual friends, prompting an interesting discussion. 

Are there things we should believe even if they are not true? That seems to be what is implied in the above-mentioned movie. Three years ago, my wife and I watched, and enjoyed, that 2003 American comedy-drama film. But I hadn’t remembered the words cited above or the longer statement:

That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil …. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.

My first reaction to the above words was negative, mainly because I think a person always ought to believe in only what is true. How could it be possible, let alone necessary, to believe in things that are not true? If every statement is either true or false (which I think is correct), why should we ever believe what is false?

There are, indeed, many “facts” that can readily be determined as either true or false. But so much of what we encounter in the world are not facts that can be scientifically verified. Often, we must affirm what we believe to be true without any assurance that those things are, in fact, true.

That certainly doesn’t mean we should believe things that we think are false, even though we must realize that whatever we believe might be false. That is far different, though, than believing things that are false.

Michael Polanyi’s book Personal Knowledge (1958) is on my list as one of the “top ten” most important non-fiction books that I have ever read. I spent numerous hours in graduate school reading and seeking to understand Polanyi’s thought. That study became foundational for my epistemology (= the study and understanding of knowledge).

Several years later, my first writing to appear in a published tome was the 18^th chapter of a book published as a Festschrift for Dr. Eric Rust, my major graduate school professor. The title of that chapter is “Scientific Knowledge as Personal Knowledge.”**

Thirty years later, in October 2009, “All Knowledge is Personal Knowledge” was the title of one of my earliest blog articles. In a comment further explaining my point, I wrote,

Knowledge is always tentative. And there is no proof; there is only belief. Thus, there is always the possibility of being wrong. One "can only believe something that might be false," says Polanyi—and he adds that that is his argument "in a nutshell" (Personal Knowledge, p. 312).

Even though everything we believe “might be false,” rather than embracing the idea that we are going to believe what we believe, whether it is true or not, Polanyi emphasizes the importance of “heuristic passion,” the ongoing desire to seek and to find what seems most likely to be true.

Perplexity AI summarizes well Polanyi’s concept of heuristic passion: “He thinks all knowing (from physics to ethics to theology) is personal, fiduciary, and fallible, and therefore always involves passionate commitment and an open‑ended search for deeper contact with reality.”

There is no place for the “lazy” stance of saying we are going to believe what we choose to believe whether it is true or not. No, since none of our core beliefs (including scientific beliefs) can be scientifically proved, we continually strive to examine those beliefs, driven by heuristic passion to seek more adequate, more comprehensive articulations of reality.

If heuristic passion for determining what is true and what is false is necessary for progressive Christians (such as I), it is certainly necessary (and maybe even more so) for secularists on the one hand and conservative evangelical Christians on the other.

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** The title of the book, edited by Robert E. Patterson, is Science, Faith and Revelation: An Approach to Christian Philosophy (Broadman Press,1979). Last month, my wife came across a long letter handwritten by Dr. Rust (over 45 years ago!) in which he thanked me for the essay I wrote about Polanyi for the Festschrift. 

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.

Rep. Liz Cheney: Speaking Truth to Power

My May 15 blog post was about columnist Michael Gerson, whom I called a man of integrity. This post is about Rep. Liz Cheney, whom I see as a woman of integrity. But please note: being a person of integrity doesn’t mean that such a person’s ideas/opinions are always correct.

Rep. Liz Cheney, a Woman of Integrity

The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives met on the morning of May 12 to consider Cheney’s leadership role in their Party. The candid Wyoming Representative spoke briefly at the beginning of that meeting and led a short prayer, closing with these words:

Help us to speak the truth and remember the words of John 8:32 — “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” May our world see the power of faith.  

Rep. Liz Cheney on May 12, 2021

Less than twenty minutes later, Rep. Cheney was set free from her powerful position as the chair of the House Republican Conference (HRC) because of her unwaveringly speaking the truth about the lies still being propagated with regard to the 2020 election.

A person of integrity is one who consistently speaks and acts in harmony with their core beliefs in spite of the negative consequences that might result. In other words, a person of integrity tells the truth when it would be to their personal advantage to lie or at least to keep quiet.

Rep. Cheney is a woman of integrity because she is speaking the truth to power, denouncing the “Big Lie” about the 2020 election even though, as she knew well, continuing to do so would likely lead, as it did on May 12, to her ouster as the third ranking Republican Representative in the House.

Rep. Liz Cheney, an Opponent of the “Big Lie”

During the entire four years of the Trump presidency, Rep. Cheney was a loyal supporter of the President. She voted in line with Trump's position 93% of the time. But she consistently disagrees with his persistent position that the 2020 election was stolen and that he was actually re-elected.

To support his attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, DJT and his allies repeatedly and falsely claimed there had been massive election fraud and that Trump had really won the election.

U.S. Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz subsequently contested the election results in the Senate. Their effort was characterized as “the big lie” by then President-elect Joe Biden—and that designation has, for good reason, been regularly used in this regard ever since.

On May 16, Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday asked Rep. Cheney if House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Elise Stefanik, Cheney’s successor as HRC chair, are “being complicit in the Trump lies.”

Cheney’s straightforward response was: “They are, and I’m not willing to do that.” (See a 40-second clip here.)

Rep. Liz Cheney, a Proponent of Problematic Ideas

Those who are not conservative Republicans find much objectionable in Rep. Cheney’s political views and public statements about political matters. To give just one example, she is sometimes called a “warmonger,” and not without reason.

A May 16 post on NewYorker.com states that “Cheney, like her father [the Vice President from 2001 to 2009], is a committed hawk and a believer in the aggressive use of American power.”

Rep. Cheney has a right to her own opinions and political views, but there is a difference between opinions and facts. We can either agree or disagree with someone’s opinions, which cannot be objectively verified to be either true or false.

But it is different with facts: they can only be acknowledged as being true or denied by lying. Rep. Cheney accepts the facts about the 2020 election and speaks that truth to the powers that oppose her.

So, in spite of her problematic ideas, Cheney’s championing the truth about the 2020 election is a mark of her integrity. And in this regard, as one D.C. newspaper headlined on May 14, “Incredibly, Liz Cheney Is on the Right Side of History.” That is because, in expanding words MLK, Jr., made famous:

The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward truth.

The Beautiful Concept of Ubuntu

For decades I have greatly admired the life and work of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, but the only blog post I have made primarily about him was seven years ago on April 30, 2014 (see here). It was from him that I first learned about ubuntu, a beautiful word/concept. 

Image with this online article about ubuntu

The Meaning of Ubuntu

Two American men published a book in 2010 with a one-word title: Ubuntu! On the second page, they explain the meaning of ubuntu as the

ancient African philosophy that draws on the fact that we are one human family. We are brothers and sisters, traveling this earth together. When one man [or woman] is poorly fed, all are malnourished. When one is abused, we all feel the pain. When a child suffers, the tears wash over us all. By recognizing the humanity of one another, we recognize our unbreakable bond—our unbreakable link to the whole of humanity.

“I am because we are” is a popular brief definition of ubuntu. As Wikipedia correctly says, in a more philosophical sense ubuntu means “the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity.”

(Interestingly, Ubuntu is now the name of a PC operating system, which is said to bring the spirit of ubuntu to the world of computers. A while back I created a Google alert for ubuntu, and there were far, far more links to the Ubuntu OS than to the African philosophy of ubuntu.)

Tutu’s Emphasis on Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a basic principle that has been long practiced by Desmond Tutu, born in 1931 in the Union of South Africa. Before he was 30, he was ordained as an Anglican priest. In 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

After Tutu had served 12 years as the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, in 1994 Nelson Mandela, the newly elected South African president, appointed him as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Here was his great opportunity to put ubuntu into practice—and he did.**

A TED talk back in 2013 pointed out that ubuntu “became known in the West largely through the writings of Desmond Tutu.” That marvelous concept has also become more widely known in the West because of his children and grandchildren.

Here is the link to a 95-second explanation of ubuntu by Mpho Tutu, the daughter of Desmond Tutu, who is also an Episcopal priest.

And Mungi Ngomane, Archbishop Tutu’s granddaughter and Mpho’s niece, is the author of a delightful 2020 book entitled Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better Together, the African Way. 

From https://mungingomane.co/

The Healing Power of Ubuntu

It is significant that President Mandela sought to create a peaceful society in South Africa by appointing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

There could have been great bloodshed and ongoing animosities. But, based on the concept of ubuntu, he (and Archbishop Tutu) emphasized both truth and reconciliation. Reconciliation between the minority Whites and the majority who were Black, could not be achieved without attention to truth.

In his new (2021) book Desmond Tutu: A Spiritual Biography of South Africa's Confessor, Michael J. Battle refers to “Tutu’s beautiful concept of ubuntu theology” (p. 9).

The first book by Battle, an Episcopal theologian born in 1963, is titled Reconciliation: The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu (1997, 2009). In the racially and politically divided nation of South Africa, Tutu strove valiantly for reconciliation. But he also emphasized the importance of truth.

“Truth-telling is the path to healing, Tutu tells U.S. audience” is the title of an online article posted in April 2002. That is even more important to recognize now in this racially and politically divided nation of ours.

There cannot be political reconciliation as long as the Big Lie about the 2020 election continues to be spouted and supported.

There cannot be racial reconciliation as long as the Whites in the U.S. cannot understand and affirm that Black Lives Matter.

Implementing the beautiful concept of ubuntu could help mightily in creating a just and peaceful society.

On the back cover of Mungi Ngoname’s book, which I highly recommend, are these memorable words:

By embracing ubuntu, we live in hope of overcoming divisions and becoming stronger together in a world where the wise build bridges.

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** Click here to see/read “Ubuntu—The African Concept The World Really Needs Right Now,” a 7/7/20 article about ubuntu as practiced by both Mandela and Tutu.

Speaking Truth to Power: Remembering Two Elijahs

Not many people are named Elijah. This article is about two of the only three Elijahs I have heard of, but they were two men with a similar defining characteristic: they spoke truth to power.

Remembering Prophet Elijah (9^th Century BCE)

The Old Testament prophet Elijah has long been one of my favorite biblical characters. I remember studying hard to learn more about Elijah and then leading a Bible study about him 65 years ago—yes, in the summer of 1956 when I was a college student.

Elijah was a prophet during the reign of the wicked King Ahab, the seventh king of Israel, and his infamous wife Jezebel, who was, well, a jezebel (= “an impudent, shameless, or morally unrestrained woman”; Merriam-Webster).

According to 1 Kings 18:17 in the Old Testament, “When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, ‘Is it you, you troubler of Israel?’ Elijah was a “troubler” because he spoke out in criticism of the evil king and his notorious wife.

Jonathan Sacks, the noted British Rabbi who died last November, published an article titled “Elijah and the prophetic truth of the ‘still, small voice’.” He stated, “Elijah was one of the greatest of the prophets, a man of justice unafraid to confront kings, condemn corruption and speak truth to power.”  

That’s what the Old Testament prophets did. It was only the false prophets who cozied up to kings.

A century before Elijah, the prophet Nathan stood before powerful King David, guilty of adultery and instigating murder, and declared, “Thou art the man” (2 Samuel 12:7, KJV).

That Old Testament story is the basis of journalist Maina Mwaura’s January 9^th piece titled, “At the Capitol, evangelicals’ ‘Thou art the man’ moment.”

Remembering Representative Elijah Cummings (1951~2019)

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born 92 years ago today, but as I have posted blog articles about him previously (first on Jan. 11, 2010), I am writing now about an outstanding African American man who was born three days after King’s 22^nd birthday.

Following his birth on January 18, 1951, Robert and Ruth Cummings named their new son Elijah, after the Old Testament prophet.

The Baltimore Magazine unsurprisingly told in a 2014 article how Cummings remembered “running home from church on Sundays to listen to Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches” on the radio.

From age 45 on, Cummings served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 23 years until his death in October 2019. Monday would have been his 70^th birthday. 

On the day of his death, Phil Murphy, the governor of Maryland, tweeted, “A model of dignity and strength, Elijah Cummings' upbringing in a segregated Baltimore led him on a lifelong mission to promote justice, to always speak truth to power, and to ensure a fair shake for every American.”

In February 2020, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s hearing room in the Rayburn Office Building in Washington, D.C., was renamed the Elijah E. Cummings Room in honor of the late Baltimore congressman.

At that dedication ceremony, Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Cummings “used his gavel to speak truth to power for our nation.”

If last week’s tragic events had happened two years ago, Rep. Elijah would most likely have been a key politician speaking truth to power—and the misuse of power by the President.

Cummings would, no doubt, have joined with Rep. Jamie Raskin, who wrote the resolution calling on VP Pence to invoke the 25^th Amendment to remove DJT from office.

(Raskin, b. 1962, currently is the U.S. Representative from Maryland’s 8^th District, where both of my sons live; Cummings served that state’s 7^th District.)

In 2018, the year before he died, Cummings said, “I’m going to try and make people realize that in order to live the life they are living, they need to have democracy, and it’s being threatened.”

Little did he know then how much U.S. democracy was going to be threatened on January 6, 2021.

How important it was/is for people like him and the Old Testament prophet Elijah—and all of us in our own place of influence—to speak truth to power!

A Truth Decay Crisis

“Trump Doesn’t Give a Tweet about the Truth” was a title I thought about using for this article—but while it is partly about DJT, this article is more broadly about the crisis of truth-knowing and truth-telling in contemporary society.

Warnings about Truth Decay

Douglas Groothuis, an evangelical Christian, authored a book titled Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism (2000). Having heard of that book soon after it was published, I thought it was a clever title and that it dealt with important issues.

Not surprisingly, The Social Construction of Reality (1966), the book I wrote about in my 7/25 blog article, is cited in Groothuis’s book. Among other things, postmodernism affirms that reality/truth is socially constructed, and Groothuis (b. 1957) sees that as a problem.

“Truth decay” is not just a concern of conservative Christian theologians, however. Increasingly, it is becoming a serious concern in society at large, particularly in the world of politics.

Early this year, RAND Corporation produced a 324-page report titled “Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life.”

To this point, I haven’t read but just a bit of the RAND report, but my impression is that it is an important study about a real crisis.

Warning about the Death of Truth

I have read the new book by long-time New York Times chief book critic Michiko Kakutani. Her book, released last month, is titled The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump. 

Early in her book, Kakutani (b. 1955) writes that DJT “lies so prolifically and with such velocity that The Washington Post calculated that he’d made 2,140 false or misleading claims during his first year in office” (p.13).

(Update: According to an Aug. 1 Washington Post article, as of July 31, DJT had publicly made 4,229 false or misleading claims.)

In her concluding chapter, Kakutani suggests that “Donald Trump is as much a symptom of the times as he is a dangerous catalyst” (p. 152).

Indeed, before the end of her Introduction, she calls attention to academics in the 1960s who were “promoting the gospel of post-modernism, which argued that there are no universal truths” (p. 18).

While she does not mention Berger and Luckmann, Kakutani decries “the post-Trump cultural landscape, where truth increasingly seems to be in the eye of the beholder, facts are fungible and socially constructed” (p. 43).

But the prevarication so prevalent in present-day society is a problem that cannot be explained simply as something produced by the theories of social construction and postmodernism.

While there are positive (and true!) aspects of social constructionism and postmodernism, there is nothing commendable about the willful telling of untruths for political purposes and/or personal gain.

Heeding the Warnings

Last week, I also read Preaching Truth in the Age of Alternative Facts (2018), a slim book (only 89 pages) by William Brosend, an Episcopal priest and seminary professor.

Consequently, one of many negative results of truth decay is the maintenance, or increase, of social injustice.

So, yes, it seems that DJT—and many of those who support him—abets truth decay by not caring a tweet about either truth or justice.

TTT #4 The Holy Spirit is God’s Universal Presence in the World and is Not Limited to Those Who Know Jesus

Christians have traditionally understood God as being “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The first two chapters of Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now [TTT] were about the “Father,” and the previous one was about Jesus Christ, the “Son.” Now we turn our attention to the enigmatic “Holy Spirit.”

Grasping at the Wind

Trying to understand the Holy Spirit is like grasping at the wind—and, indeed, the Hebrew word ruach and the Greek word pneuma can be translated “breath” or “wind” as well as “spirit.”

Some Christians tend to think of the Holy Spirit being active in the world only after the resurrection of Jesus. This is largely because of Jesus’ promise of the coming Spirit (such as in John 15:26) and the events recorded in the second chapter of Acts.

There are many references to the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, however, and some even think that the first reference to the Spirit is in Genesis 1:2. (Is it the Spirit, or just the wind, moving over the waters in the creation story?) 

The Church’s creed of A.D. 381 spoke of the Holy Spirit proceeding “from the Father.” But in the sixth century, the Church in the West added one (Latin) word: filioque (“and the Son”).

That word became a point of division between the Church in the West (Roman Catholicism) and the Church in the East (Eastern Orthodox). But the eminent German Lutheran theologian Jϋrgen Moltmann rejects the addition of filioque—and for good reason (see his The Spirit of Life, 1992).

The Holy Spirit is linked from the beginning to the eternal Word (Logos), and not just to Jesus.

The Go-Between God

John V. Taylor, a distinguished Anglican missionary and theologian, was the author of the seminal book The Go-Between God (1963). Taylor convincingly contends that all of creation is a result of the movement of the Spirit and everything is related to God because of the Spirit.

That certainly doesn’t mean that everyone is aware of their relationship to the Spirit. But the Spirit is aware of everyone!

Here again we are confronted with the problem of the universal and the particular—and again I agree with Taylor when he avers that “the Holy Spirit is universally present through the whole fabric of the world, and yet uniquely present in Christ and, by extension, in the fellowship of his disciples” (pp. 180-1; italics in the original).

The Holy Spirit, we might say, leaves footprints of God all over the world, and people from all ages and in all parts of the world, to varying degrees, see those tracks.

The Spirit of Truth and of Freedom

Three times in the Gospel of John we find the words “the Spirit of truth,” and also according to John, Jesus declared that “the truth shall set you free.” Further, the Apostle Paul also declares that “the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (1 Cor. 3:17).

In the first chapter, I indicated that “all truth is God’s truth.” It can also be asserted that because of the Spirit, all freedom is God’s freedom. Thus, the work of the Spirit can be linked to the core assertions of the theologians of liberation.

Black theologian James Cone, for example, avers that “God’s revelation in Jesus Christ is identical with the presence of his Spirit in the slave community in struggle for the liberation of humanity” (God of the Oppressed, rev. ed., p. 181).

Thank God that the Spirit, known uniquely through Jesus Christ, can also be known universally throughout the whole world!

[Please click here to read the entire fourth chapter of TTT.]

Truth is the First Casualty

“The first casualty when war comes is truth.” Those words are attributed to Hiram Johnson in 1917. He was a U.S. Senator from California (1917-45) and was strongly opposed to the United States entering World War I.

Perhaps it can also be said that truth is the first casualty when there is a political convention. I say this partly because of my reflection upon last week’s Republican National Convention. Unfortunately, the same will probably also be true at the Democratic National Convention this week, although to a lesser degree I hope and pray.

Early in his acceptance speech the Republican nominee declared, “Here at our convention, there will be no lies.” But the next day a Huffington Post article had this headline: “Donald Trump Promises Not To Lie, Right Before Lying A Bunch Of Times.”

Was Trump really lying in his acceptance speech? Perhaps, but that depends partly on what one means by lying. If a lie is something one deliberately says in spite of knowing that it is false and with the intent of misleading other people, then Trump probably did lie about a number of things.

But he may well have thought that what he said was true, for he most likely didn’t look up all the facts and figures used in his speech. The fact-checkers did look them up, though, and many statements were found to be incorrect, misleading, and/or just plain false.

Truth, or the lack thereof, has been an issue with Donald Trump for a long time, as the fact-checkers have abundantly shown. The following chart indicates his and 19 other politicians’ untruthfulness/truthfulness. 

This chart was uploaded on imgur.com (see here) on June 7, but I have not been able to authenticate the accuracy of these figures. Neither have I been able to discover who Robert Mann is. (He may be, or perhaps is not, a journalism professor at LSU.)

It must also be noted that all falsehoods are not of the same seriousness, and this chart deals with only the quantity of the lies told, not with qualitative differences. Still . . . .

If you want to consider only the two presidential candidates, here are figures from a July 1 article in the Washington Post: 

Writing last Friday about the RNC, Jim Wallis averred that “the continual outright lies and vicious personal attacks this week have been extraordinary.”

One of those lies was told by Ted Cruz on July 20: “Our party was founded to defeat slavery. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. We passed the Civil Rights Act, and fought to eliminate Jim Crow laws. Those were fights for freedom, and so is this,” he said.

This false claim that the Republican Party (as well as the Democratic Party) of today is the same as it was in Lincoln’s day is widespread. For example, on his July 22 radio show Rush Limbaugh declared, “The Democratic Party was the Party of the KKK—and it still is!”

(For an excellent explanation of the reversal of the two parties through the years, check out the article linked to here.)

Rush also highly recommended “Hillary’s America,” the new movie by Dinesh D’Souza that opened on July 22. D’Souza spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition meeting I attended in June, so I was not surprised to receive a FFC email last week with this headline: “D’Souza reveals the sordid truth about Hillary & the secret history of the Democratic Party.” 

But the “sordid truth” that D’Souza reveals is full of lies. Once again truth is a casualty. 

Is Proclaiming Jesus’ Resurrection Political Incorrect?

A few weeks ago I posted a blog article about political correctness. For the most part I favor the effort to be politically correct, for in its best form political correctness shows empathic understanding of those who are often discriminated against or belittled.

There was some questioning of a more recent article, though, along this very line. There was no direct reference to my not being P.C., but it was implied that what I wrote about the origins of Christianity and of Islam was problematic.

From the beginning I knew that there would likely be some pushback, for what I wrote could be used as an excuse to criticize, discriminate against, or mistreat Muslims today. I tried to counter that possibility by writing what I did in the final paragraph.

Christians around the world have just celebrated Easter (except for those in the Orthodox tradition who will not celebrate Easter until May 1). If there was, in fact, something historical about the resurrection of Jesus, Easter is an event that decisively differentiates Christianity from other religions.

Many have understood Jesus’ resurrection much too literally, seeing it is some sort of miraculous resuscitation of his physical body. That is not the kind of resurrection I am writing about.

On the other hand, many liberal Christian interpretations emphasize that Jesus’ resurrection was mainly metaphorical or “psychological” rather than historical. That is, it is explained as the “resurrection” of the spirit of Jesus in the hearts and minds of his early followers.

John Shelby Spong, for example, contends that the Jesus’ resurrection took place in Galilee, where the disciples had fled after Jesus’ crucifixion, rather than in Jerusalem, where Jesus had been buried in Joseph’s tomb.

Liberals need some way to explain the resurrection so Christianity can be considered just one religion among many that are equally valid and valuable.

That is not the kind of resurrection I am writing about either.

Recently, I have written a review of a book about the life and thought of Lesslie Newbigin. In that process I looked again at some of his notable writings, especially The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989). Newbigin (1909-98), an Englishman, was one of the premier missionaries and missiologists of the 20^th century. (Several years ago I wrote a blog article in praise of Newbigin.)

Newbigin repeatedly used the words “public truth” in referring to the Christian message, and one of his smaller books is titled Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth (1991). The idea of public truth, of course, stands in stark contrast to the relativistic idea of truth in post-modernism and often in liberal Christianity as well.

He wrestles with the problem of truth not just from the standpoint of religious faith but also epistemologically, making repeated references to the significance of Michael Polanyi’s emphasis on “personal knowledge.”

In Truth to Tell, Newbigin avers, “To believe that the crucified Jesus rose from the dead, left an empty tomb, and regrouped his scatted disciples for their world mission can only be the result of a very radical change of mind indeed.”

He goes on to assert that “the simple truth is that the resurrection cannot be accommodated in any way of understanding the world except one of which it is the starting point” (p. 10-11).

Belief in the Resurrection should never lead to arrogance, condescension, or triumphalism. That belief should, however, lead faithful Christians to have confidence in the uniqueness of Jesus and to proclaim, boldly and lovingly, the significance of that pivotal event—even though some might consider it politically incorrect.

Clobbered by "Truth"

Those of you who have had some theological training will likely recognize the Greek word aletheia. It is the word used many times in the New Testament and translated into English as truth. According to John 14:6, Jesus claims to be the truth (ἡ ἀλήθεια).

Well, last week I was trolled by someone who gave his (surely it wasn’t a her!) name as Alethia 21—and I assume that name means the same as aletheia. That person, about whom I was unable to find any other information, left very negative comments on four different blog articles of mine.

All along I have encouraged people who disagree with my views/ideas to speak up. I have welcomed dialogue—and there has to be some disagreement for there to be any real dialogue. But I have also expected civility, and I have always tried to be civil toward those with whom I have disagreed.

Alethia 21, though, didn’t mince words—and didn’t seem to pay much attention to civility. In the comment he posted on my Feb. 19 blog article, he said, “But now I realized your [sic] a sanctimonious sarcastic liberal. Quite ignorant of what really goes on in life I might add!”

(Well, I may be somewhat ignorant of what really goes on in life, but at least I know the difference between your and you’re! And you should read some of the harsh things he said!)

At the beginning of another comment—and true to his Internet name—Alethia 21 declared, “The issue is always TRUTH! We can say the truth but we can do so in a Christian manner!” Then, just before referring to “Lucifer Obama,” he wrote, “If truth insults then so be it!”

(Actually, these latter comments were later removed by Alethia 21.)

Several times I have seen conservative Christians insisting that it is more important to be biblically correct than to be politically correct—although I have not been able to see why it has to be one or the other.

The insistence on being biblically correct is almost always tied in with a literalistic reading of the Bible considered to be inerrant. Among other things, but at or near the top of the list of what it means to be biblically correct, is the gay/lesbian issue.

Much of Alethia 21’s emphasis on truth, and much of his anger toward me, was directly related, it seems, to his vociferous opposition to gay/lesbian rights. What looks to us “liberals” as political incorrectness (as well as ignorance and bigotry), seems to people like Alethia 21 to be adherence to the truth of God’s word.

That kind of polarity in society, and among people who claim to be Christians, seems to be insurmountable in this present time. How can people be so greatly divided about the truth? And why do some professing Christians think it is all right to clobber others with the truth (as they see it)?

Perhaps the over-confident and overbearing use of truth fueled development of the post-modern view that denies there is any “absolute truth.” Everything becomes relativized: you have your truth, I have mine.

Back in 1995 a helpful book dealing with the challenge of post-modernism to Christianity was published under the title Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be. That title expresses the present reality.

Certainly, the post-modern view of truth is much kinder than old views such as that the one held by Alethia 21. But is it the truth? Probably not.

But, admirably, this view at least rejects the legitimacy of clobbering people with “truth.”