How to Share Your Faith Using 'Truthiness'
Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert unleashed a new word into the American vocabulary this past year - 'truthiness'. And now it's official! Colbert's word - 'truthiness' - was recently named the 2006 Word of the Year by Merriam-Webster, the ultimate dictionary/word gurus!
Truthiness describes "truth unencumbered by the facts" or "truth that comes from the gut, not books." In other words, it's truth as whatever you want to define it as!
Another Colbert word invention that has found its way into our vocabulary is 'wikiality' which means "reality as determined by majority vote" - a reference to the user-compiled website Wikipedia and its approach to gathering 'collective intelligence' via the contributions of its users.
But beyond being humorous, like any good satire, Colbert's word inventions of truthiness and wikiality provide a snapshot of a very real cultural trend - the trend of conveniently disregarding the fact that absolute truth exists, independent of what we might 'wish' the truth to be.
While many of your friends may believe that there is no such thing as 'absolute truth', when you quiz them further, you'll find that they really do believe in the reality of gravity and the principles of aerodynamics. And if 'truth' exists out there in the physical realm, independent of whether we happen to believe it or not, why would it be a big leap to consider that it also exists in the spiritual realm, at God's bidding, independent of whether we happen to believe it or not? That should be a sobering thought, and one that motivates us to be actively seeking to understand God's truth. Not that we, in our finiteness, can know all truth and exclusively capture the corner on the truth market. But Jesus gave us some major directional arrows that we should be paying attention to when he said,
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
So next time you find yourself in a conversation on the latest buzz from The Colbert Report, whether it's a reference to Colbert's hockey team or whatever form his next creative grab for attention takes (tracking Stephen the eaglet or hijacking the online voting competition for naming a Hungarian bridge, and on and on...) look for ways to turn the conversation toward truth and God talk. Here are some ideas to help you:
- Ask your friends what they think of the word 'truthiness'. Do they believe there is 'absolute truth'? Do they believe it exists in the physical realm, i.e., gravity? What about the spiritual realm? Share what Jesus said about himself in John 14:6. Ask your friends what they think he meant by that statement.
- T he Soul Fuel article Think Outside the Box puts it this way, "To not believe in absolute truth is illogical. To deny an absolute is to make an absolute statement. To claim there is no truth is saying: it is a truth that there is no truth! This just doesn't work." Find out what your friends think of this statement, and share what you believe.
- Discuss 'wikiality'. Is it an accurate perception of reality? Do your friends believe the collective input of many people comes closer to describing actual reality? Do you?
- Find out where your friends go when they're looking for an accurate take on reality? Do they turn to the media, music, their friends...? Let them know that Jesus promises that he is the way, the truth and the life. Tell them how God has made that truth real in your life!
Truth is important! Don't buy into the current buzz that says nothing is absolute. Remember that friends don't let friends buy into that kind of thinking either...and that's the truth!
