“Crap being fed into our brains by people with an agenda.”
Dave Ramsey
Sometimes issues just kind of pop up all over the Internet. They can be discussed in totally different venues for totally different reasons, but the same subject is there, in each and every place. Lately, I have seen the question of the truth pop up on several of the blogs I follow. Barry Ritholtz, a somewhat liberal financial blogger, who normally avoids political rancor faced the issue head on. Stephen Freeman, a deeply committed Orthodox priest, tackled the question Pilate asked the Messiah in the Hall of Judgment, “What is truth?” Seth Godin, a marketing guru, challenged his readers to examine the truth of statements made to us by that little voice in our heads. Most recently, my pastor gave me some promotional material for Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. Dave was talking about the truth, in this case financial truth.
Major media outlets in this country are biased, extremely biased. This is a world in which any two given media reports on something as simple and unimportant as a football game agree on very little but the score. Different networks have different biases, some liberal, some conservative. Expecting to see or hear the “truth” on American Television is a pretty hopeless task. Besides being politically biased, all the networks, including PBS, want your money. One of the things I love about the Internet is that I can read the same story from 3 or 4 different viewpoints. Sorting through that many different personalities and spins can give you a pretty good idea of the facts. Then, how you interpret the facts is your business.
In the movie, A Few Good Men, Colonel Jessep announces, “You can’t handle the truth.” He is correct. All of us have our own little mental maps of reality. We couldn’t operate without them. The world is too large and complex. Sometimes our mental map of reality and the world do not agree. When that happens, all too often, we conclude the world is in error and our precious beliefs and world view is correct. Psychologists call this phenomenon Cognitive Dissonance. It occurs when an individual is confronted with an uncomfortable truth that conflicts with their world view. The all too human response is to minimize the pain of realization with “justifying, blaming, and denying.” I have seen it happen over and over in churches, the columns of political commentators, and the publications of financial prognosticators.
Some time ago, I reached the point in my life where I came to believe that Pilate’s question was not an attempt at clever cynicism, but an honest reply from the tired cynical heart of a ruthless, intelligent, complex man. After too many years of service in the Imperial bureaucracy, a world where there is no truth, only an ever shifting balance of power, policy, and personality, Pontius Pilate, the fifth Prefect of Judea, had become incapable of recognizing the truth. Beyond an inability to recognize the truth, Pilate, a successful survivor in a world where self preservation was job one, had become incapable of the courage necessary to risk his own life and career for the sake of another. As a result of all he had become and the life that he had lived, Pilate washed his hands before the city of Jerusalem, and knowingly sent an innocent man to suffer a horrible death.
John 18
[37] Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
[38] Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.
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Henry,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reflections here. The last paragraph should hit us all like a slap in the face:
"Beyond an inability to recognize the truth, Pilate, a successful survivor in a world where self preservation was job one, had become incapable of the courage necessary to risk his own life and career for the sake of another. As a result of all he had become and the life that he had lived, Pilate washed his hands before the city of Jerusalem, and knowingly sent an innocent man to suffer a horrible death."
In this paragraph, you've exposed why this question is not abstract and metaphysical. Instead, the question of truth directly impacts upon another common idea among the Hebrews, the "way." Truth is embodied. Jesus calls Himself, "Truth." He also calls Himself, "the Way and the Life." Truth embodied becomes a path or a way in which we walk out our core belief. In turn, this walking becomes a life.
In Pilate's case, the goal or end point of the path always moves toward "self-preservation." His goal, limited his ability to see truth for he was limited to decisions that support his underlying goal of self-preservation (as opposed to Jesus call for self sacrifice in his disciples). As a result, he was on a path that eventually would lead to killing an innocent man.
In a culture that glorifies success and worships the successful, I fear we may easily join Pilate on the path of self-preservation even when we are proclaiming our faith. Thus, we move toward "truth" decisions that may lead us to act in ways that sacrifice the people around us who block the way of success.