“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott
“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott
It really is a war on reality. People who believe that reality is socially constructed come to believe that lying for the sake of building a socially just world is fine. And so, we find ourselves committing suicide as a civilization.
Rod Dreher
Our nation continues to be embroiled in cultural conflict; an un-civil war that threatens our future as a democracy. Unlike culture wars, fighting secularism, atheism and moral decline, intiated by the Evangelical right in the 1970’s; today’s war is a bewildering paradox in which the combatants are waging War on Reality. This is a dispute between objective reality and perceived reality. Each, believing they are championing the building of a just society, ironically fabricate their own reality; a moral compromise Rod Dreher correctly characterizes as suicidal.
Combatants armed with an ancient, timeless, deadly and effective weapon — lying —using any of its many traits — untruthfulness, fabrication, fibbing, perjury, white lies, little white lies; falseness, falsity, dishonesty, mendacity, mendaciousness, perfidy, perfidiousness, lack of veracity, telling stories, invention, misrepresentation, deceit, duplicity, dissimulation, dissembling, pretense, artifice, guile, double-dealing,— strive to discredit, destroy anything or anyone that threatens reality as they perceive it.
At this point, Christians will invoke – Amen! Declaring agreement about “them” and their despicable lies. The problem, as I have come to understand it is , the combatants waging war on reality, are not “them’, but “us”.
This post will end the True and Real series. I have wandered the landscape a bit but hopefully the discussion has raised an awareness of the possibility of faith that is true but not real.
My premise being that secularism’s disenchantment and rejection of transcendence, creates faith that is a mirage, true but not real. The essence of disenchantment is the absence of transcendence, most apparent in the absence of God. Without the divine, life loses its meaning and purpose. The only remaining option for meaning and purpose in a secular age comes from within, each individual becomes their own god. As transcendence is diminished, my religion becomes a commodity in a quest for meaning and purpose.
I am increasingly convinced the current upheaval in evangelical Christianity is directly related to faith that is nothing more than a mirage. Faced with a pandemic and other realities, our faith has been tested and found wanting. Timothy Keller gives credence to this proposition in his recent Atlantic article entitled “Growing Faith in the Face of Death”. Excerpts below reflect his struggle with his belief in the face of death. His term is abstraction, an apt synonym for mirage.
…our beliefs about God and an afterlife, if we have them, are often abstractions…. If we don’t accept the reality of death, we don’t need these beliefs to be anything other than mental assents. A feigned battle in a play or a movie requires only stage props. But as death, the last enemy, became real to my heart, I realized that my beliefs would have to become just as real to my heart, or I wouldn’t be able to get through the day. Theoretical ideas about God’s love and the future resurrection had to become life-gripping truths, or be discarded as useless.
When I got my cancer diagnosis, I had to look not only at my professed beliefs, which align with historical Protestant orthodoxy, but also at my actual understanding of God. Had it been shaped by my culture? Had I been slipping unconsciously into the supposition that God lived for me rather than I for him, that life should go well for me, that I knew better than God does how things should go? The answer was yes—to some degree.
American philosopher Jonathan Edwards argued, it is one thing to believe with certainty that honey is sweet, perhaps through the universal testimony of trusted people, but it is another to actually taste the sweetness of honey. The sense of the honey’s sweetness on the tongue brings a fuller knowledge of honey than any rational deduction. In the same way, it is one thing to believe in a God who has attributes such as love, power, and wisdom; it is another to sense the reality of that God in your heart.
Timothy Keller
It is comforting that I, like Keller, struggle “to bridge the gap between an abstract belief and one that touches the imagination”. The antidote and ultimate vaccine for secularism is unseen reality. My spiritual quest is to seek and engage unseen reality. To put it in Christian vernacular… “Come to know God.” it is there we find meaning and purpose.
It’s been more than a month since my last “What is True and Real?” . This post continues the series. Richard Rohr’s latest post entitled “The Gospel Lens” is the basis for this post. Excerpts from Rohr’s post set a framework for some thoughts on worldview and continued discussion on “What is True and Real?”
The problem is …. Any time someone interjects with “The problem is…” I am immediately reminded “seldom is the presented problem the real problem” . The point being not to reject but always probe deeper. It is with the expectation that you will probe deeper, I say …“the problem is extremism”extreme : something situated at or marking one end or the other of a range
Everybody looks at the world through their own lens, a matrix of culturally inherited qualities, family influences, and other life experiences. This lens, or worldview, truly determines what we bring to every discussion. When Americans identify money as “the bottom line,” they are revealing more about their real worldview than they realize.
Our operative worldview is formed by three images that are inside every one of us. They are not something from outside; they have already taken shape within us. All we can do is become aware of them, which is to awaken them. The three images to be awakened and transformed are our image of self, our image of God, and our image of the world.
We would do well to get in touch with our own operative worldview. It is there anyway, so we might as well know what this highly influential window on reality is. It’s what really motivates us. Our de facto worldview determines what catches our attention and what we don’t notice at all. It’s largely unconscious and yet it drives us to do this and not that. It is surely important to become conscious of such a primary lens or we will never know what we don’t see and why we see other things out of all perspective.
Richard Rohr
Refrains like : “I just don’t know what to believe anymore.” or “I don’t believe anyone.” are clear indications of cognitive dissonance that prevails in our culture. I believe Rohr is correct in his assertion that our worldview “truly determines what we bring to every discussion” The third of Rohr’s three images in us that forms our operative worldview is our image of the world. The other two images … image of self… image of God…will be the subject of later posts. It is …our image of the world..I want to consider.
The refrains cited above and reasonable assessment of our culture testify to a culture defined by mistrust and doubt. Conversations quickly reveal distrust of governments, religious and educational institutions, corporations , media, science, experts of any ilk. Sadly, friends and family are often included as untrustworthy. Much like a friend quipped, decades ago, “I’m pretty sure you and I are the only ones right about this, and I’m not so sure about you.”
It should be no surprise in this secular age many believe there is only one reliable source for what is true and real … themselves. That would be troubling in and of itself, but the conversations I’m having are with Christians. Secularism is polar opposite of Christianity. It appears cultural warriors have been out flanked. Christians, as Rohr suggests, …would do well to get in touch with our own operative worldview“.
Our de facto worldview determines what catches our attention and what we don’t notice at all. It’s largely unconscious and yet it drives us to do this and not that.
We have a de facto worldview shaped by the secular age. I’ve written about that previously. Our operative worldview, primarily expressed in distrust, is being shaped by extremism.
Mistrust, skepticism, of the entities mentioned earlier is not new. Such is the nature of human interactions. We we are all well aware of human potential for evil. It is healthy to be skeptical but unmitigated distrust is toxic.
Distrust sows distrust. It produces the spiritual state that Emile Durkheim called anomie, a feeling of being disconnected from society, a feeling that the whole game is illegitimate, that you are invisible and not valued, a feeling that the only person you can really trust is yourself. Distrustful people try to make themselves invulnerable, armor themselves up in a sour attempt to feel safe. Distrust and spiritual isolation lead people to flee intimacy and try to replace it with stimulation. Distrust, anxiety, and anomie are at the root of the 73 percent increase in depression among Americans aged 18 to 25 from 2007 to 2018, and of the shocking rise in suicide. “When we have no one to trust, our brains can self-destruct,” Ulrich Boser writes in his book on the science of trust, The Leap.
unknown
Our biggest problem is not sin; it’s our broken ability to trust. That’s why we sinned in the first place. We didn’t trust in the goodness of God. The healing we most need is the healing of our broken capacity to trust. That’s the problem behind all of our problems.
J D Walt
The prevailing operative worldview is shaped by by a view of the world seen in the extreme. Facilitated by media and technology we see the world magnified to the extreme, an equivalent of bacterial bed buddies.
Bacterial Bed Buddies
Dead skin cells, sweat, saliva, and more can turn your comfy bed into a petri dish for germs to grow. For instance, lab tests found that swabs from pillowcases unwashed for a week harbored 17,000 times more colonies of bacteria than samples taken from a toilet seat.
Information that is true, when viewed in the extreme is unreal. Unreal in the sense that it does not reflect reality. It is true but not real. Reality is the sum of all parts. Bacterial bed buddies are true but they do not reflect reality. They are one minuscule part of a vast reality, which when understood in proper perspective will produce healthy outcomes… enjoying freshly washed bed linens and sleeping soundly. Magnified out of proportion they produce anxiety, fear and disproportionate responses.
Rohr puts it this way: People with a distorted image of self, world, or God will be largely incapable of experiencing what is really real in the world. They will see things through a narrow keyhole. They’ll see instead what they need reality to be, what they’re afraid it is, or what they’re angry about. They’ll see everything through their aggressiveness, their fear, or their agenda. In other words, they won’t see it at all.
Society’s (our) gross misbehavior, comes from viewing a world distorted by extremism. Ever present media depicts what is true, but seldom real. We are lost in the desert desperately pursuing a mirage, living in panic, fighting bacterial bed buddies.
I have no optimism that secular society will embrace what is true and real. My hope lies in the transcendent reality of the Kingdom of God, where what is true and real dwells.
To that end, my prayer remains, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
This morning has been a transcendent experience, filled with awe, joy, sadness, wonder, thanksgiving and hope. Far from ordinary it will be a precious memory. It was true and real. Because of its deeply personal nature it is not readily transferable. I am incapable of replicating it but hopefully I can provide a glimpse. As I watched the sun rise, God’s hand delivered this song:
We, buried dreams Laid them deep into the earth behind us Said, our goodbyes At the grave but everything reminds us God knows, we ache When He asks us to go on How do we go on? We will sing, to our souls We won’t bury our hope Where He leads us to go There’s a red sea road When we can’t, see the way He will part the waves And we’ll never walk alone Down a red sea road How, can we trust When You say You will deliver us from All, of this pain, that threatens to take over us Well, this desert’s dry But the ocean may consume And we’re scared, to follow You So we will sing, to our souls We won’t bury our hope Where He leads us to go There’s a red sea road When we can’t, see the way He will part the waves And we’ll never walk alone Down a red sea road Oh help us believe You…
You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Psalm 16:11
In my previous post, I implied that absolute truth is at the heart of our divisive culture. After pondering that idea for a few days, I am still holding that conclusion. In this post, mostly a stream of consciousness, I want to explore the idea of absolute truth and perhaps clarify my conclusion.
In full disclosure, I believe there is absolute truth. I know some will breath a sigh of relief and a few will wince.
The subject of absolute truth is a trigger in post-modern culture. The following quote helps frame the issue:
Whatever happened to the truth?! In our world, the idea of ultimate truth — something that is true at all times in all places and has relevance for our lives — is about as extinct as the dinosaur. In fact, nearly three out of four Americans say there is no such thing as ultimate, or absolute, truth. And the numbers don’t look much better among those who claim to follow Jesus. In a society where ultimate truth is treated like a fairy tale, an outdated idea or even an insult to human intelligence, the motto of the day becomes, “WHATEVER!” Believe whatever you want. Do whatever seems best to you. Live for whatever brings you pleasure, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. And of course, be tolerant. Don’t try to tell anyone that their whatever is wrong.
Ironically, everyone believes in Absolute truth. When someone says, “There is no such thing as absolute truth,” that person is actually making a statement that he or she believes to be absolutely true. Contradictory, isn’t it? Christianity has come to be defined largely its commitment to culture wars, battling assaults on absolute truth. The opposition’s absolute belief that there is no absolute truth is a Maginot Line. This is a frightening proposition. When one believes they possess absolute truth, any action can be justified to protect truth. Therein lies the basis for concluding that absolute truth is a root cause of division. Logic will not permit any compromise. If A is absolutely true, then B is absolutely false. The conflict has evolved into trench warfare
Mutually assured destruction is not imminent, Christianity has adopted the secular ethos of “whatever”. It’s a lot easier to to declare …”whatever, believe whatever you want”… especially since their ultimate reward is eternal hell. “Whatever” is not a solution, it it is a diversion, it is the political equivalent of “love the sinner, hate the sin”. The truth is, when either side’s absolute truth is threatened they will be a fight to the death. Truth matters and is worth fighting for.
Mutually assured destruction may not be imminent for our society, but it is a present reality for families and churches. On a personal level, absolute truth is nitroglycerin, mishandle it and family, friends, spiritual bonds can be destroyed.
The challenge for me, a believer in absolute truth, is how to properly handle Absolute Truth. In considering that challenge here are some thoughts I am pondering in hope of developing proper procedures for the safe handling and use of Absolute Truth.
I found one writer’s puzzle metaphor helpful.
If all existing truth (ontology) were represented by a jigsaw puzzle, what we know (epistemology) would only be a few pieces from the puzzle. This means that what we know can only be known in varying degrees of probability, since after all, we only have a small portion of the entire puzzle—we are always drawing conclusions based off of partial information. (Zachary Broom)
Reality is, what I hold as absolute truth may well be true but it’s not absolute. Ironically , my “absolute truth” is only a few pieces of the puzzle, but mishandling it has dire consequences.
As my friend said when asked if he believed in absolute truth, “Yes, but not absolutely.” The first and foremost rule in handing absolute truth is “Handle with Humility”. The essence of truth is perfection. The essence of our humanity is imperfection.
The thought that humility is the first step in safe handing of absolute truth does not give me much optimism. It does, theoretically, give Christians an advantage in handing absolute truth.
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Ephesians 4:2 – NIV
More to come, lots of questions. Still on the Journey
