Safe Place to Tell the Truth

Spirituality Column #206
October 19, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Safe Place to Tell the Truth
By Bob Walters

We respect and trust people who tell the truth.

So how is it we’ve slipped into a vast public place where it is not politically correct – often, even illegal – to claim that capital-T Truth actually exists?

Certainly, this isn’t a sudden development. Humanity has been slipping in that direction for a long time … maybe for 2,000 years since Jesus said “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.” (John 14:6).

In this country, the Truth has been seriously slipping from public view since Knowledge and Truth became an academic dichotomy after the American Civil War. Whether in the public square, a city council, a courthouse (that dispenses justice), a great university or a humble local school system, Truth today is out of vogue.

Our institutions instead clamor for facts and research, not the Truth. They want answers. They often want to do the right thing … overlooking, of course, the utterly inconvenient logic that absent Truth, right and wrong don’t exist. Neither does freedom. Neither does justice. Neither do ethics.

Instead, public institutions abide by a socially acceptable and tautologically nonsensical truth, which is that one can claim any truth one wants, and it will be accepted in the loftiest Ivory Towers of the Academy … but call it Science. Call it Progressive. Call it Green. Call it Social Justice.

Just – please – don’t claim a Truth from the author of Truth, the only person in the history of mankind or in any religion to claim to be the Truth: Jesus Christ. Leave Him out of it; lest you offend someone. Christ as Truth is an unwanted opinion.

The, um, truth, of course, is that the Truth of Jesus Christ has pretty much always been, for competing doctrines or most governments, an unwanted opinion. Exhibits A and B are the Pharisees and Pontius Pilate.

America was supposed to be different because our founders believed:
1. It was unwise to codify religion in our Constitution, and
2. Only God’s free Truth residing in the free hearts of ethical citizens would prosper and congeal a free society.
3. Truth was cherished by the people

Dallas Willard’s just-released book, “A Place for Truth,” published by The Veritas Forum, contains a series of on-campus presentations on Truth by many of the world’s greatest thinkers: Christians, philosophers, scientists, atheists.

The book is encouraging, fascinating, challenging and … has a lot of truth.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) warns the faint hearted, the book is an open academic discussion. Thankfully, the good guys win.