Friends:  You’ve likely heard the phrase, “Figures never lie, but liars always figure.” The father of lies continues busily attacking Christians, with plenty of eager human help. Truth is better. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #919

June 25, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Liars Always Figure

By Bob Walters

“I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the father but through me.” – Jesus to the Pharisee Nicodemus, John 14:6

Given the evident corporate enormity of the modern and so-called Christian deconstruction movement, I’m struck by the cheapening of what its adherents are willing to call truth.  They figure God is a bad deal. Truth is, Satan is a skilled liar.

We’re going to continue this week with thoughts on the book I’m reading, The Deconstruction of Christianity, by Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett. The authors accurately portray and describe the movement, and bear true witness to all the God, Jesus, Spirit, Bible, and church evidence that God’s truth supersedes human knowledge.  Truth is the thing God built into His creation, regardless of our belief.

And we all know who’s at the other end of truth: the father of lies and promoter of man’s distrust of God, Satan.  Deconstruction is our newest word for Satan’s work. 

At its rock bottom is this redefined notion that the magnificent “I” – and not a glorious God – is the appropriate fountainhead and arbiter of truth.  In order to validate the deconstructionist view of truth, it is actually necessary to first destroy the idea of truth, deny truth’s existence, and rewire – or rather, unplug – God’s created reality. This is what “deconstruction” in this context means. “Deconstruction,” the authors write, “isn’t about submitting to the truth, it’s about people choosing their own truth.”

If these deconstructionists – those who redefine and tear apart Christian values and doctrines, and not only leave the faith but encourage, assist, and celebrate others to do the same – coherently valued truth, they would not leave “truth” up to the vagaries of human opinion, conversation, passions, convenience, fallenness, and pride.

Mad at Christianity, the church, a pastor, the Bible, other Christians? Fine. Did we learn nothing about elemental, fallen human nature? Truth is God’s; humans, uh, lie.

“Faith” becomes not so much about “truth” as about alternate reality and about freedom from the “oppressive doctrines” of Christianity. Never mind that Christ frees us from death; a deconstructionist sees freedom as a function only of this life, not eternity.

Enter the alternate realities of current culture. Wokeness insists biological truth is a lie.  Postmodernism denies the existence of objective truth. Nihilism denies the existence of meaning.  “I can do what I want and be what I want and that’s my truth” is the self-focused mantra of the cancel culture which demands, but does not give, tolerance.  Accepting God’s love and forgiveness is Christian oppression and a lie. Ugh.

The book, by the way, does a wonderfully accessible job of presenting the often opaque philosophical and theological – not to mention common sense – aspects of truth.  As scholars try to define truth from time immemorial, Jesus is truth in eternity.

It occurs to me that our knowledge, valuable as it is, does not do what we think it does when it comes to identifying truth.  My college philosophy professor had no Godly beliefs though he could explain any religion and did a great job of teaching how to spot nonsense.  I am pretty sure truth is something that is in God, and only in us as we allow the Spirit to put it there. Faith is not “believing in something;” faith is God’s truth in us.

I was a little worried when I began reading The Deconstruction of Christianity that I might see some logic in the movement’s tenets.  Nah.  I see human pride, of course. And a sad kind of spiritual murder.  And I can certainly imagine Satan yucking it up.

We figure we know truth better than God, and the father of lies knows we don’t.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is happy to trust God’s truth. It’s better than Satan’s.