Living in a Post-Truth Era
I had a deeply disturbing conversation with a dear brother in Christ last Sunday. My friend is an attorney and an elder with our church family. We meet early most Sunday mornings to visit, holding conversations that go down some wildly unpredictable avenues.
I cannot recall the specific question I asked him, but in his monologue response, he described for me how numerous attorneys lie on a regular basis and think nothing of doing so. They know they are lying and it can be proven that they are lying, but they assuage their consciences by claiming each is representing their client to the best of their abilities, which is their job, thus their lying is acceptable. It is up to the jury to determine who is truthful and who is not. And the lies are free from consequences beyond you and me wagging our heads.
He continued with examples of lies in court documentation. The judges don’t see it as any big deal, so there are rarely repercussions for the lies. And he’s not talking about mere differences of opinion. These are documented, provable lies. An attorney may quote a prior witness as having said “X” when the trial transcript clearly demonstrates that the witness said “Y.”
To make matters even more disturbing, my friend shared an example of the court itself lying. I was aghast at the things I was hearing.
A Post-Truth Era
Most of you have likely heard the phrase, “We live in a post-truth era.” “Post-truth” was selected as the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2016. History has given us the post-industrial era, the post-cold war era, the post-modern era … and now we are in the post-truth era.
How does one stand for truth in a world where truth is derided along with those who defend it? The new “truth” holds that nothing is absolute, an irony that is difficult to miss. We’re asserting that the new truth holds that nothing can be said to be true…which would include this very assertion. The inevitable result of this is that your truth and my truth will not match, and may even be in direct conflict with one another, yet, today’s model holds that both are true. This sort of logic is what drove the HAL-9000 computer insane.
Noah Webster’s 1828 edition of the American Dictionary of the English Language defines “truth” as “Conformity to fact or reality ; exact accordance with that which is, or has been, or shall be.”
We live in a time wherein members of society will ignore both facts and evidence because those facts and evidence do not align with how they feel about a given topic. Men and women post online video of themselves having colossal meltdowns because someone accurately referred to them as “sir” or “ma’am,” which was accurate, but those truths do not align with the video star’s selective delusion, and this reality hurt their feelings. Hurt feelings = non-truth.
Current generation society is engaged in a deliberate, mental shift from a factual worldview to one that views evidence and disprovable hypotheses as irrelevant simply because it does not like the truths they inevitably lead us to. Truth interferes with the societal delirium.
The New Virtue
If we dig even more deeply, we find that the debate includes a side street, moving away from truth and untruth, or truth and error, to a discussion of tolerance versus intolerance. Absolutes are to be rejected – absolutely. Once again, irony is front and center as some enraged lunatic screams in our faces that he or she will not tolerate our intolerance.
Sexual deviancy is now virtuous, brave, and heroic. It is laudable to cheer the children’s drag queen story hour at the public library, while it is considered improper and disdainful to criticize it. So successful are those pushing this inane agenda that there are civic pockets across the country with laws are in place forbidding our objections. I may get a visit from the constabulary for posting this article!
The Outcome
The results of the post-truth mindset are potentially devastating. We are witnessing a society which has rejected empirical data as truth and adopted a sort of truth-fluidity wherein truth can be whatever I want it to be whenever I want it to be that. So, if today is a day when I feel like a dog, I can wear a collar, walk on all fours, and you are not allowed to disparage me in any way for my doing so.
Truth has been replaced by feelings as the basis of our interactions. Even reason itself has been thrown from the stage. There is no logic, no objective standard, no absolute truth. In the absence of objective truth, nothing … nothing can be said to be true or false, holy or evil, moral or immoral. This reality drives what we are beginning to see—a rise in the categorizing of pedophilia as the newest acknowledged and accepted sexual orientation.
Claiming filth to be virtue does not make filth virtuous. Claiming that there is no objective standard for what is true and what is false does not eliminate the reality of that standard. If, in keeping with the current societal trend, I choose to identify as dominasexual, meaning my “orientation” is to force myself on women, and that it is good to do so, you cannot judge me for this. But the truth is such a man is an out of control, sadistic beast who is inflicting women with life-altering trauma.
If, in defiance of truth, you feel like, or identify as an eagle today, and as that eagle, you fly off the 37th floor of some apartment building, your truth and the truth are going to arm wrestle you right down to the sidewalk where the truth is going to win out.
Just as the one who is intolerant of my intolerance is violating their own principle of tolerance, the one who shouts that “There is no truth,” is proclaiming as truth the assertion that no such truth exists. It forces us to ask, “Is it really true, Jack, that there is no truth?”
From that point forward, chaos reigns. Anarchy rules.
In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
– Judges 17:6, ESV
The Influencer
The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
– 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, ESV
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
– John 3:19-21, ESV
The Worldly Church
I saw something on social media two days ago that continues to pester my thoughts. A man I’d not previously encountered was blasting another man who is one of the most based, grounded, and faithful men I interact with online.
The based gentleman had posed a theological question that involved possible eschatological views of the Old Testament. Below is the attacking man’s answer. I have chosen, for his own embarrassment, to keep him anonymous.
Why don’t you ask the Holy Ghost to teach you what you wish to know, to lead you into all truth, to show you things to come? He is, after all, the reason that Jesus walked the earth and the reason that He returned to the Father. [Now, get this line…] Burying your head in scripture is not the answer.
Burying our heads in scripture is precisely what we need to be doing, and we need to do so daily. Even a cursory reading of Psalm 119 will emblazon this concept on one’s psyche. “Teach me, O LORD, the way of Thy statutes, and I shall observe it till the end. Give me understanding, that I may observe Thy law, and keep it with all my heart.”1
An avalanche of worldliness has rolled much of the western church and buried it in a theology that elevates experiences and feelings over scripture and truth. When the pursuit of feelings dominates a body of believers, you can be certain that a theology of self has driven the theology of Christ out of their midst.
Vapid, subjective, and experiential teaching that rarely (if ever) challenges the body to maintain their allegiance to King Jesus. Nothing is to be said or done that might make those in the seats feel the least bit uncomfortable.
Doctrine Matters
The apostle Paul urged his protégé, Timothy, to watch his life and his doctrine closely.2 As Christ-followers, we are to be uncompromisingly aligned with truth. Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”3 Please do not lose sight of the fact that it is God incarnate speaking these words. And note that Jesus did not say, “Your word is the truth,” but rather “Your word IS truth.”
Lange and Schaff put it this way:
The word of God is, in the abstract, pure truth, a lively word, the source of light and the light-impulse to perfect enlightenment; and so, what it is in itself, it must become in the disciples.
Returning to the apostle Paul, he urged Titus to “contend for the faith,”4 and this need not be a nasty encounter. It is possible to contend earnestly for the faith in a way that is uncompromising, yet loving, compassionate, and respectful.
But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.
– 1 Peter 1:5, ESV
It’s Not Legalism
Inevitably, someone will object, “Aw, you’re just being legalistic, Damon. You can’t tie me down like that.” No. It’s not legalism. It’s freedom.
Consider this. When is a train free? Is the train free, when it jumps the track and attempts to go lumbering across the cornfield? Of course not. That’s absurd. The train is free when it rides the rails it is intended to ride. Yes, the track constrains the train to a specific direction, but that is what the train was designed for. So it is with us. We are designed to find our freedom by functioning within the statutes of God that were fashioned and delivered for our good. We ride God’s rails.
Decades ago, a study was done involving school children and a playground. All the fencing around the playground was removed to “free the children.” There were no barriers, no restrictions. The result was that the children gravitated toward the center of the playground. What was perceived by the objecting adults as a barrier, was, in truth, a hedge of protection and safety for the children. When the fencing was restored, the children made use of the entire playground again.
True freedom is not living without constraints. True freedom is living as we were designed to live. That’s not legalism. That’s intelligent existence. That’s exactly what Jesus meant when he said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” And notice that this freedom is conditional. It is if we abide in his word.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
– John 8:31-32, ESV
1. Psalm 119:33-34, NASB
2. 1 Timothy 4:16
3. Lange, J.P. and Schaff, P. ()2008. A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: John (p. 520). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
4. Jude 1;3
