Living the truth, not just believing it
Well-aligned spokes make a bicycle wheel true. Truthful living gives a person credibility.
Theologian Karl Barth once suggested that the most pressing question people ask when hearing a sermon is: “Is it true?” Is God really present in our lives and our world in a way that these preached words suggest might be true?
Some years ago I decided there is an antecedent question of equal importance: “Is the preacher true?” For me, this question doesn’t circle around whether the preacher avoids telling lies or making false claims, but whether the preacher’s own life is truth-shaped. Does that life have an inner and outer coherence to it? Like a bicycle wheel that is wonderfully true, spinning straight, has the preacher done enough truthful living to lend credibility to the words offered from the pulpit?
I thought about this matter of being true after picking up Sara and Jack Gorman’s book Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts that Will Save Us. This father and daughter, a psychiatrist and a public-health specialist, probe why reasonably smart people cling to scientific claims that are demonstrably false. Covering subjects as far-reaching as the antivaccination movement and the purchase of guns for the illusion of safety, the Gormans study why people ignore or deny factually important information.As they dissect why it is that we coddle irrational beliefs, accept only the information that fits our worldview, and dismiss data that doesn’t suit our disposition, the authors reveal a side of us that’s motivated more by fright and emotion than intelligent reasoning.
