Monday, May 21, 2012
288 - The Truth of the Coming Election
Spirituality Column #288
May 22, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville
The Truth of the Coming Election
By Bob Walters
Who created truth – God or Man?
How one answers that question reveals much about one’s intellectual point of view in spiritual, political, and moral matters but very little about the reality of God.
I bring this up because I have a hunch that man’s truth is going to take a real beating over the next several months as America enters into the throes of a debilitating rather than glorifying presidential election. Thankfully, God’s truth won’t change.
Please know that I am not here to write about candidates or politics; I’m here to write about Jesus Christ and truth. And please know I am generally optimistic about America and Americans. But I am pessimistic – at this moment – about our overall cultural inclination, and indeed even our ability, to deal with truth as a “God thing.” The loudest academic and cultural voices out there want us to think truth is a “Man thing.”
And that makes dealing with each other exceptionally difficult. Rancor is nothing new in politics, nor, for that matter, within Christendom. But our technical ability to quickly and massively communicate ideas – right or wrong, truth or lie, helpful or hurtful, pious or impious – make the flares of insincerity and mistrust burn all the hotter.
I will be among my many Christian brothers and sisters close to hyperventilation at various points in the coming months as common-sense social conventions (family, marriage, life, faith, et al) are assaulted with intellectually, spiritually, and socially specious – but politically expedient – “truth.” We will be bombarded, as G.K. Chesterton once wrote, with “truisms that are simply not true.”
Satan’s most devastating temptation is to suggest that man should be God’s equal when it comes to the knowledge of good and evil, i.e., truth. Starting in Genesis 3 and for the rest of the Bible up to Revelation 20 when Satan is finally defeated, we are taught that man’s idea of his own superior truth is a “truism that isn’t true.”
What I do know is what God says: “I, the Lord, speak the truth” (Isaiah 45:19). And I know what Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). And I know that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8) and that “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
And I know that that glory is God’s. And that’s the truth.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), who each Friday publishes one of his old “Classic” columns free at www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com, has to work overtime to convince himself that his political opinions don’t really matter. Bob's book, Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary, is available at (click) Amazon.com and Lulu.com.
May 22, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville
The Truth of the Coming Election
By Bob Walters
Who created truth – God or Man?
How one answers that question reveals much about one’s intellectual point of view in spiritual, political, and moral matters but very little about the reality of God.
I bring this up because I have a hunch that man’s truth is going to take a real beating over the next several months as America enters into the throes of a debilitating rather than glorifying presidential election. Thankfully, God’s truth won’t change.
Please know that I am not here to write about candidates or politics; I’m here to write about Jesus Christ and truth. And please know I am generally optimistic about America and Americans. But I am pessimistic – at this moment – about our overall cultural inclination, and indeed even our ability, to deal with truth as a “God thing.” The loudest academic and cultural voices out there want us to think truth is a “Man thing.”
And that makes dealing with each other exceptionally difficult. Rancor is nothing new in politics, nor, for that matter, within Christendom. But our technical ability to quickly and massively communicate ideas – right or wrong, truth or lie, helpful or hurtful, pious or impious – make the flares of insincerity and mistrust burn all the hotter.
I will be among my many Christian brothers and sisters close to hyperventilation at various points in the coming months as common-sense social conventions (family, marriage, life, faith, et al) are assaulted with intellectually, spiritually, and socially specious – but politically expedient – “truth.” We will be bombarded, as G.K. Chesterton once wrote, with “truisms that are simply not true.”
Satan’s most devastating temptation is to suggest that man should be God’s equal when it comes to the knowledge of good and evil, i.e., truth. Starting in Genesis 3 and for the rest of the Bible up to Revelation 20 when Satan is finally defeated, we are taught that man’s idea of his own superior truth is a “truism that isn’t true.”
What I do know is what God says: “I, the Lord, speak the truth” (Isaiah 45:19). And I know what Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). And I know that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8) and that “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
And I know that that glory is God’s. And that’s the truth.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), who each Friday publishes one of his old “Classic” columns free at www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com, has to work overtime to convince himself that his political opinions don’t really matter. Bob's book, Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary, is available at (click) Amazon.com and Lulu.com.
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