So there I sat, suspended at the Easter train station, wondering if I could answer Pilate’s rhetorical question to my own satisfaction. And can I share the answer with my family and friends? (After all, answering the question would not be out of arrogance. I wouldn’t own the truth, I would only be sharing a truth that owns us all.)

It occurred to me if Jesus couldn’t testify of the truth, that is if He were not true, all of this discussion and faith-history would be in vain.

From The Message translation of the Bible (I Cor 15:13-15):

If there’s no resurrection, there’s no living Christ. And face it: if there’s no resurrection for Christ, everything we’ve told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you’ve staked your life on is smoke and mirrors. Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God. All these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ are sheer fabrications if there’s no resurrection.

So, my journey was weighty. I have had a faith relationship with Jesus for about twenty-two years, but every once in a while a question like this hits me like a brick. Some people call it doubt. Some call it being hyper-analytical. But it’s addressing these kind of questions to my own cerebral satisfaction that grows my faith. So I hope you will come along.

I determined that first I needed to define the word “truth” in the context of what Pilate believed, and then more importantly what Jesus actually meant. My trip quickly took a right turn into the neighborhood of philosophy. Your thinking, “Okay, great. I’ll exit the vehicle here and walk home.” Trust me, I didn’t like this any better than you. However, I did manage to skirt along the edge of this scholarly suburb to avoid getting lost or worse, never seen again. And, as it turned out, it wasn’t too bad.

I will, only for a moment, digress into a brief but necessary study, so hang in there with me. It’s worth it!

Today’s world view of truth is probably much like that of Pilate’s world: a society of cultural relativism or commonly labeled postmodernism. That is, “What you believe to be true is fine, just don’t dog mine.”

Terry Eagleton, professor of cultural theory at Manchester University (a self-proclaiming agnostic and controversial philosopher), defines postmodernism as,

… the contemporary movement of thought which rejects totalities, universal values, grand historical narratives, solid foundations to human existence and the possibility of objective knowledge. Postmodernism is skeptical of truth, unity and progress, opposes what it sees as elitism in culture, tends toward cultural relativism, and celebrates pluralism, discontinuity and heterogeneity.(1)

Cultural relativism leads us to shallow, polite and socially tolerant dialogue to otherwise tasty subjects like religion, the meaning of life, creationism versus evolution, and politics. Politeness and social tolerance are admirable, but truth in today’s postmodern culture, steered by political correctness, cultural differences, and sightless sincerity is not truth based on objective reality (for more, investigate the correspondence theory).(2)

And that kind of “truth” is not the kind Jesus was speaking. Jesus was speaking of strong, muscle-flexing, no-apologies absolute truth.

It is false piety to preserve peace at the expense of truth.

— Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher and mathematician of the 17th century

We conclude next time.

(1) After Theory, Terry Eagleton
(2) http://www.leaderu.com/theology/groothuis-truth.html, Douglas Groothuis

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Last weekend was Easter. And while many of us were set to motion by the train of, “It’s Easter already?,” a locomotive of family dinners, Easter-egg hunts and church services, I felt like I was left at the station. In fact, I was left in almost full-suspension. It was a Matrix moment (just like the movie), and before I knew it the weekend was gone.

Our church’s Good Friday service, an observance of Jesus suffering and ultimate death on our behalf, left me feeling like I just exited the funeral of a loved one. My heart was heavy and languid. Although I did celebrate his resurrection and ultimate victory over death itself on Easter Sunday (of which I am eternally grateful), I still find myself deliberately recounting moments of that fateful and scandalous eve.

Who knows exactly what Pontius Pilate was thinking. Pilate, the Roman governor who sanctioned Jesus’ execution, must have thought Jesus was quite simply odd – a man who was clearly intelligent but (from Pilate’s perspective) must of had some loose screws due to his upbringing, cultural inferiority, or years on the street.

Have you ever struck up a conversation with a street person? Sometimes you can relate to them with ease and other times they say strange things that leave you feeling uncomfortable.

Jesus was like that. His neighbors were tired of hearing of His incendiary notions. He spoke of His own unworldly kingdom. He challenged Pilate’s beliefs, already pregnant with superstition and myths of the day. Jesus also said He was born to be king to bear witness to the truth, and everyone who believed the truth was on His side (John 18:37). Strange… and Pilate began to feel uncomfortable.

Pilate punched rhetorically, “What is truth?”

So, I guess the natural question is, “Can Jesus testify the truth?” That was the question that suspended me in my Matrix moment. Furthermore, how can I testify that Jesus is the truth? After all, if He is true as He says He is, then He deserves our very lives, fortunes and deepest affection.

– D

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Baseball is big in my house, particularly with us boys. We study the strategies, follow the trades and personalities (particularly as they affect the Astros), admire the talent and enjoy the battle of wills and trickery between the batter and the battery. Yesterday was another one of those battles of will and trickery, although not one that we actually enjoyed watching.

Roger Clemens, esteemed as perhaps the best pitcher in the modern baseball era, went before a U.S. Senate investigative committee to explain his involvement in the illegal use of anabolic steroids and Human Growth Hormone (HGH) in professional baseball. (He was implicated in the Mitchell Report released back in December, the culmination of a 20-month investigation led by Sen. George Mitchell.) Up to this point, I had believed that perhaps Trainer McNamee had substituted vitamin injections for steroids/HGH without Clemens’ knowledge.  In effect, Clemens would believe that McNamee was “getting him results,” and McNamee would keep the evidence for fraud and extortion. After all, McNamee was “small-time,” as the press has emphasized, with financial pressures, an ailing son and a broken marriage.

I had given Roger the benefit of doubt. I was able to ignore the sordid taped phone call, and possible witness-tampering. But yesterday, when Roger’s best friend Andy Pettitte stated in a sworn affidavit implicating Roger, I was saddened.

In the end, I believe that The Report, initiated by baseball commissioner Bud Selig, is a way to wipe the slate clean and leave the ugly past behind. In November 2005, MLB owners and players agreed to tougher penalties for positive tests. These penalties are considered in-line with most other professional sports: a first positive test would result in a 50-game suspension, a second positive test would result in a 100-game suspension, and a third positive test would result in a lifetime suspension from MLB(1).

Great, you say. Well, we are not out of the woods yet. Synthetic HGH abuse is difficult to detect. One of the first wide-spread HGH testing programs, although limited in effectiveness, was implemented in the 2004 Athens Olympic games. Last year, there were more breakthroughs in identifying protein “markers” left behind in the bloodstream following HGH injection(2). The science is catching up, but has a ways to go.

Here is my point. I love the sport, and while I’m thankful that the owners and the player’s union agreed to a hardened drug policy, I remain concerned about the historical preservation of the sport if banned drug use continues to be difficult to detect. How will we continue to relate and recount the historical greats of the modern baseball era (the likes of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, and Hank Aaron) with today’s record-breakers We won’t, because we can’t. And this chapter will regrettably come to a close.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroids_in_baseball

(2) http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jun192007/national200706198280.asp?section=updatenews

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