“Each and every sin in its own unique way is a denial of what is real.” — Fr. Terrance Klein In my last post, I began to explore the ethics of truth as one finds this theme in the New Testament….
Truth Decay: Walking in the truth
“I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” — 3 John 4 With this post, we make our first turn to truth as a moral issue. We will not begin with…
Truth Decay: The New Testament on truth
“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true…
Truth Decay: The Old Testament on truth
“All the paths of the Lord are faithfulness and truth to those who comply with his covenant and his testimonies.” – Psalm 25:10 (NASB) In my last post, I reviewed philosophical theories of truth. I concluded that for most everyday purposes the correspondence…
Truth Decay: What is truth?
“What is truth?” — Pontius Pilate (John 18:38) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a famous essay called “What Is Meant by ‘Telling the Truth’” claimed that truth telling is “expressing reality in words.” Bonhoeffer’s shorthand definition reflects the commonsense, most familiar understanding…
Truth Decay: Truth as an issue in Christian ethics
“Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Anything more than comes from the evil one.” — Matthew 5:37 Six years ago, I took to the pages of Associated Baptist Press (now Baptist News Global), to puzzle over…
The church has a role to play in implementing COVID vaccine
With a vaccine for COVID-19 presumably coming sooner than later, the question of who will and who won’t choose to get the vaccine is looming large. And along with that are questions about the role of the church on matters…
Seven ways to embrace a reality-based religion
In these days of “alternative facts,” pronouncements that “truth is relative,” where science is disregarded as just another opinion, and where we are taught to distrust any news except the news on “my” channel, let’s consider what a reality-based religion…
The election’s good news and bad news, with a side of hope
First the good news: The fact that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris prevailed over Donald Trump and Mike Pence is obviously the most important thing that happened on Nov. 3. The removal of Donald Trump from the office that he…