Monday, July 3, 2017

555 - Truth and Freedom

Spirituality Column No. 555
July 4, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Truth and Freedom
By Bob Walters

"But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength, by recalling it within the pale of truth." —Thomas Jefferson (1805)
 
I love freedom of the press.  I’ve studied it.  I get it.  I defend it.
 
Though I like to joke that my own journalism degree (Franklin College, 1976) was squandered by several years working as a newspaper sportswriter, I was never very far personally – in spirit or function – from the larger themes of public information and mass communications.  Perhaps it’s a career irony that most of my private reading and interests since college have centered on politics and history, not sports.  It was always the people in sports I found truly interesting anyway, not the sports themselves.
 
Since 2001 those intellectual interests have been considerably added to with the Bible and the enthusiastic study of nearly 2,000 years of Christian thought, religious philosophy, doctrinal development and church history.  I found faith in Christ at age 47 and suddenly a bevy of scholarly and preacherly companions appeared alongside me to help navigate my faith journey to a confident trust in Jesus Christ.  These folks – who I mention often in these weekly essays – revealed a deep, wonderful and mysterious ocean of Christian truth, peace, wisdom and purpose.  Question my discernment and discipline if you like – I do all the time – but Jesus is the solid rock of truth in this life.
 
Not “my” solid truth; “the” solid truth.  Not me, not my opinion, not church:  Jesus.
 
So going back to journalism as an issue within the context of truth, I find some solace in the fact that Thomas Jefferson who penned not only the American Declaration of Independence but also the Bill of Rights – freedom of the press, etc. – to have been confounded (see quote above) in his age by journalistic malfeasance.  Every time I see a dust-up in church or in the Christian community or among different religions, it is rare to see one that hasn’t happened multiple times over the centuries.  Similarly, in a free society journalists tend to push their own agendas.  That’s not cynicism or hate speech any more than studying the Great Schism of the 11th century is an indictment of the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches.  It’s just how it is. Agendas happen.
 
But there are times – and this is one of those times – that the American Experiment would be well served by earnest media truth-telling rather than hyperbolic obeisance to fashion and fancy.  Perhaps some of you also notice today a pervasive “backwardness” to how news stories are covered and social narratives are asserted.  Things we should probably worry about – domestic security and international terrorism come to mind – are pooh-poohed with claims of phobias.  Private preferences of sexuality that have  always been with us but, shall we say, will never propagate the species, are celebrated with specious huzzahs of courage and heroism.  Religion is covered with politically correct themes rather than academically rigorous investigation.  Truth suffers.
 
Freedom requires truth to realize human purpose, life’s desires and God’s glory.
 
I pray for American journalism to regain its strength by getting the message.
 
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), who understood tennis because he played it, will return to visit God’s truth and American journalism in the coming weeks. Happy 4th!
Fourth of July bonus reading ...


 

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