What is Truth and Who Cares?

325054@2xToday I'm leading a zoom meeting for the Aberdeenshire Theological Circle. "What is Truth and Who Cares? The Importance of Truth in Public Discourse."
 
I'll offer an introductory set of stories, examples and questions.
 
There's Pilate's question, of course. There's Nathan the Prophet confronting the deep untruth at the centre of David's life.
 
There's a story about an English teacher whose integrity shaped the values and ethical choices of hundreds of young lives.
 
There's a book on the Babylonian captivity of politicised hard right Evangelicalism, and another titled Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies.
 
Then there's our own national and cultural stories of these past years sacrificing truth on the unholy trio of altars, to political ideology, to cultural polarisation, and to reified self-interest.
 
Some thought on the words of Proverbs 3.3:"Let not integrity and faithfulness forsake you…write them on the tablet of your heart."
 
And for me, at the centre of the discussion, the call to follow that lonely figure, hands bound, body abused, looking at Pilate through swollen, half-closed eyes, and seeing with searing clarity the levers of political expediency seeking to silence, deny, and ultimately destroy truth.
 
What is truth? And whose truth matters most?

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