“That’s Your Truth, I've Got My Own”
“You Christians are always judging others,”
the young man said after reading the tract I gave him. “Don’t
you know that all ways are right? How
can you say your way is the only way?
You’re so self-righteous!”
We talked briefly about
Christ and truth, but he wasn’t interested.
For him, all roads lead to God.
The only sin is putting up roadblocks, and I was putting up a king-sized
one. I had no right to judge someone
else’s truth; everyone picks his own.
We
live in a pluralistic society. Various
religions, world views, and ideologies exist side by side and are more abundant
than television channels. But no one
world view dominates our culture. We rub
shoulders with Baptists and Buddhists, Mormons and Mennonites, Christian
Reformed and Christian Scientists.
With
so many competing claims to truth, how can any one of them claim to be the truth? The sheer number of religious options
dissolves their credibility. For any one
of them to claim a monopoly on truth is – well, anti-pluralistic.
“Open the phone book to ‘churches’ and look
at all of them!” says a friend of mine.
“How could you ever know you
picked the right one?” So he doesn’t
try.
He’s
right, however; there is a lot of religious diversity. And because of that, many people are
unwilling to discuss their faith. Faith
has become a strictly private matter that, if discussed at all, shouldn’t be “rammed down people’s throats.” So we have politicians who say they’re
privately against abortion but publicly support abortion rights.
Religion
has become little more than cultural tradition or personal habit rather than
objective truth – knowable facts about God, humanity, and salvation. If something makes you “feel good” or “works for
you,” fine. Just don’t hit me over the head with it. I’ve found something else.
We’re
urged to attend the “church of our
choice”; it doesn’t matter which one, any one will do.
So most people refuse to consider the facts of Christianity,
especially Christ’s death and resurrection. They don’t want to be bothered. What they feel
is true is more important than what is in fact
true.
Faith is a “religious preference” or “lifestyle,” a matter of personal
opinion, not established fact.
Pluralism
once meant religious liberty. Today it
means that no religion can claim sole possession of the truth. People say that there is no such thing as
exclusive truth and will not tolerate a narrow-minded Christianity that claims
to be the only way. But the fact is, Christians feel at peace with God only because it is
theological fact that Christ died for their sins.
The
idea that there are many ways to God, or many truths, is nonsense. Either God exists or
he doesn’t; my feelings or opinion has nothing to do with it. God said, “I
AM WHO I AM,” not “I AM WHAT YOU
BELIEVE I AM.” Either Christ is God
or he isn’t – whether we believe it or not. “Let God be true, and every man a liar” (
As
one philosopher said, “Logic stands
independent of our whims.” The
mushroom eater who says, “I pick and eat
any mushroom I want, whatever I feel is right at the time,” won’t feel much
for long. Many kinds of mushrooms are
deadly. If he eats a poisonous mushroom,
he will die. There is only one truth.
“Christ is true for you,” the student
said to me. “If you believe it, then it’s true for
you!”
“No!” I said. “I’m
saying that Christianity is true and
I believe it. It’s not true because I believe it. It’s true whether anyone believes it or
not. At least understand what it
claims.”
“Look,”
he sneered, “if it’s true for you, fine;
but it’s not true for me.”
Because
truth seems so elusive, many people hesitate to adopt any convictions. They call it “being open-minded.”
Everything, including the gospel, might
be true, and they end up, as C.S. Lewis said, with “a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing together in their heads.” Each entrée in the smorgasbord makes for good
fare, as long as you don’t make it a steady diet.
When
I received Christ, my friends thought it was just a “phase,” something to experiment with for a while. I certainly wouldn’t stick to it. That would be too narrow-minded. They couldn’t understand that the gospel is a
radical call to lifelong obedience to a single truth.
Maybe
the problem is that Christians aren’t communicating the real gospel. Sociologist James Hunter has shown that
evangelicals tend to “civilize” their
faith, softening the more offensive facts of the gospel – sin, hell, God’s wrath – to make it more palatable to others.
I
know a Christian who told his friend that he didn’t want to see such a “nice person” go to hell, but hell
exists because no one is, in God’s sight, a nice person. Hell is an unpopular fact, but still a fact.
Jesus
didn’t mince words about God’s holiness and justice, even when he challenged
the Sadducees, who didn’t believe in hell.
Christians must speak the truth, and nothing less than the truth (Eph.
Some
Christians communicate the gospel in pragmatic terms. “It
works,” they say. “Let me tell you what Christ can do for you.” True, Christianity works, but if people hear
only how fulfilling or exciting it is to be a Christian,
the gospel can be misunderstood as just another religious preference, another
way to God – not the only one.
Christianity isn’t true because it
works; it works because it’s true. “And if Christ has not been
raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Cor.
A
pluralistic society worships many gods and many lords. In other words, “in gods we trust.” Just as
Paul challenged the religious plurality he found in
First,
Christians must learn to think, refuting the “close-minded” label we’ve carried
for the past hundred years. All truth is
God’s truth, and directed by God’s word, Christians can seek it wherever it’s
found. The close-minded bigot says, “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind’s
made up.” The active-minded
Christian says, “Bring on the facts. I’m not afraid of them; I have the mind of
Christ.” Augustine said, “The Christian thinks in believing and
believes in thinking.”
Second,
because Jesus said he was the only way to God, most people who say they are
open-minded are not open to Christ’s claims.
The Christian’s task is to make them face the questions they are not
asking: “Why don’t you think there is
absolute truth – something that is true for everybody? Doesn’t believing that there is no absolute
truth take a lot of faith? What makes
you so sure you can’t be sure of what is absolutely true?”
The
idea that there are absolutely no absolutes is a contradiction, and Christians
must make people face that. To reject all absolutes is to make an absolute
statement, which is logically false.
A
student once wrote a paper arguing that there were no moral absolutes. Although the paper deserved a high grade
because of its research and thoroughness, the professor gave him an F. When the student protested, the professor
said, “Why should I give you an A? Everything is relative, isn’t it?”
Truth
is, by definition, exclusive. The pilot
landing a packed 747 has but one option – the narrow flight path that leads to
life. Deviation from that path will
bring destruction. A question on a
multiple-choice test has one correct answer, no matter how many possible
answers are listed.
But
the truth has to be knowable, a fact.
Paul claimed that the resurrection of Christ was a world-shaking
objective fact that could be verified by witnesses (1 Cor. 15:1-8), and many
modern scholars have shown that Scripture is accurate and trustworthy.
Third,
Christians must boldly challenge people’s false beliefs and ideas. Yes, it’s unpopular, uncomfortable, and
defies the common attitude of live and let live, but lives are at stake. If someone believes his malignant tumor is
just an inflammation, he must be shown the truth. Similarly, Jesus came to divide truth from
error and was not afraid to challenge the Sadducees on their understanding of
the resurrection. “You are badly mistaken!” he said.
Yet we point them to Christ, not because we’re right and they’re wrong, but because God is offering them salvation. We must not destroy arguments to prove ourselves superior, but out of love, compassion, and humility to help them receive forgiveness from a holy God.
Douglas Groothius