Freedom and Truth
What is truth? That’s a famous question, well known to any student of Philosophy, Religion, or Literature. The question was asked by Pontius Pilate. The man who reluctantly condemned Jesus to death had a private conversation with him before he passed judgement. During that conversation Jesus had said to him “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” And Pilate wanted to know, “what is truth?”
It was an important question for Pilate to wrestle with. He was at a crossroads in his career. An insurrection in Jerusalem would have put him on the outs with the Emperor. His wife had had a disturbing dream and warned him not to execute the man before him. There were some compelling arguments both ways. Pilate needed to look for the truth in a difficult situation.
Earlier, Jesus had told some people “you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” This statement has always called to my mind a stark image that I always see when I think of this verse. When I visited Auschwitz in the late 90’s, I walked under a gate that thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands?) of Jewish prisoners walked under on their way to death and suffering. The sign says in German, “Work will make you free.”
It never ceases to amaze me the things that human beings will distort to prop up their own beliefs or to manipulate others. But the one thing that always seems to suffer is the truth.
We now live in a post truth age. Truth has very little value for anyone. I still remember a few years ago when someone coined the phrase “alternative facts.” This is now a substitute for the ancient word “truth.” Alternative facts can be used, not in a discovery for truth, but in support of a narrative. In a post truth age, narratives are far more important than truth.
As I watch and listen to the many news reports, the political pundits, and even the scientific community in the present moment, I have noticed that there is very little interest in discovering truth and far more interest in supporting a certain narrative.
This makes sense on one hand because we all know that it is narratives, not truth, that give meaning to our lives.
Let me show you what I mean. A gallup poll in 2017 found that 87% of Americans accepted the truth claim that there is a God. At the same time, another poll found that 70% of Americans find meaning in family and 35% found meaning in their careers, and only 20% found meaning in spirituality. It would seem that accepting a truth claim had very little influence on meaning.
But narratives don’t work like truth claims. A narrative might be that there is a God whom we have offended but he has chosen to become one of us in order to lead us back to himself. There is a plot. There is a story here with a dramatic actor that involves us and invites us into the story.
Let me show you two other narratives that I find to be at work today in our culture. They oppose each other, but they are both very active and attractive. There is a group of people using the democratic party to try to usurp American culture and values so they can take over our nation, and only President Trump is standing in their way. An opposing narrative goes like this, President Trump is a narcissist who is manipulating the American populace so he can use his position as a business opportunity.
I am not here advocating or denying either of these narratives. But I will say that I notice a lot of people discovering meaning in one of these two narratives.
Every day I see opposing positions on things like The Coronavirus, masks, foreign policy, or the upcoming election that seem to be driven more by “alternative facts” to support one or the other of these narratives. And in the mix, truth is lost.
Once upon a time, truth mattered more than politics. Once upon a time, scientists depended on a practice called “peer review” when making truth claims. Once upon a time, things like the efficacy of masks or climate change would have been settled by experts and society would accept what they had to say. Those days are over for the foreseeable future.
Now that we live in the “information age” there will always be information available for us to support any narrative that gives us meaning. And as we know, narratives are more important than truth. We will happily choose whichever “alternative facts” best support our chosen narratives. This is what precisely what Pilate did. Did he discover truth, or did he simply choose the version that best helped his own career?
We may not be able to discover the truth about certain things because of the opposing narratives doing combat for their own small corners of “truth.” But there is an alternative open to us. We can choose a better narrative.
Maybe one of the above narratives offers you meaning right now. But bad news, they both have shortcomings. American culture and values are not eternal. Read a history book. American culture, values and even the constitution will certainly fall away at some point in history. Protecting these things may be nice, but ultimately that is a losing fight anyway. Before you get all snappy with me, I’m not saying we should burn the constitution! I am just saying, there is a better narrative.
The American populace has been deceived about things ever since there was one. We are not fallible. We vote for the wrong people sometimes, we make poor choices often. And there will always be someone who is able to fool us and take advantage of us. Look into the history and science or advertising, it’s been happening for awhile now. Again, I am not saying we should merely give up, I am saying there is a better narrative!
These narratives where so many Americans are finding meaning right now seem to have some pretty glaring shortcomings, even if they are representative of truth, they are not the whole truth. And only the whole truth can set us free.
Let’s return to an earlier narrative. There is a God who made us. He intended for us to share in his creation, to live as his created beings and and be his partners in the world. We tried to steal it for ourselves, and so suffered the consequences. But because he is good, he is rescuing us from ourselves and from the pain we have made out of a broken world. He has become one of us in order to lead us back to our purpose of living in this world as his created beings in partnership with him.
Perhaps finding meaning in these lesser narratives is one of the places where we suffer because we tried to take his authority. Maybe instead of finding meaning in political nonsense, and arguing over these meaningless narratives, it would do us all good to locate our lesser passions and interests inside this narrative. This is evidence that we are not what we should be.
We also mistakenly try to locate our salvation inside these lesser narratives. “Trump will save us from the deep state,” or “the democrats will save us from Trump,” these are both statements of salvation. Instead, know that there will always be a deep state and there will always be Trumps. And that only Jesus can save us.
These narratives tell us that we need to stand against so and so, or ideology A, B or Q. These narratives invite us into active participation in the act of redemption. But as we’ve said, these are all short sighted. There will always be another problem, challenge, and foe. But there is a bigger narrative that invites us to participate in a better salvation.
It’s only in finding our meaning in this narrative that the Church can continue to be a church in a post truth era. The church must not divide over narratives that offer lesser meaning. We must instead unite around a better narrative.
This better narrative is the only truth that matters, and it’s the only truth where we can find freedom.
I can already hear the objections about just sitting back and waiting for Jesus. I can already hear people saying that there are problems in our society that we need to deal with “As Christians.” So let me respond.
Yes and Amen! Absolutely! Once that narrative guides us, I could not agree more. Once the Christian narrative is our guide, we absolutely have a lot of work to do as partners of God in the work of creation. Loving well, serving our community, preaching the gospel, and offering hope to the hurting. We are not here to save America, or even our culture. We are here to serve, save, and love the whole world. Adopting the better narrative as our explanation for our problems and the source of our hope will radically alter the way we choose to interact with and solve the problems of our age.
Which narrative is guiding your fears and your actions?