What Is Truth?

(Part Two of the Give Us Barabbas series)

At the end our reading, Jesus states, “The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

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(Read this series from its beginning here.)

“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?” (John 18:38-39)

I don’t believe Pilate was living in a post-enlightenment world where all truth was labelled as relative. But I do believe he understood that life is complicated, and what appears one way to one person can appear totally different to another. What benefits some can harm certain others. I read this statement as a moment of transparency for Pilate, one that reveals his own cynicism and complicity.

But I also am living in a culture where truth has been sacrificed on the altar of political power. Today we are living in a world of “alternative facts.” I’m exhausted from hearing the phrase “fake news” aimed at anything thing the Right deems disagreeable. It’s one thing to have differing political and economic views about what we as a society should do based on a shared set of facts. But how can democracy function or even survive when people have no shared reality? Democracy seems impossible without a shared reality. Disinformation has created a state where half the country lives in one reality while the other half is genuinely trying to survive in another. We are sorely missing the ability to critically think and assess what is taking place right before our eyes. In Orwellian fashion, we are being told by certain ones not to trust what our eyes are seeing in real time.

Next, Pilate addresses the crowd. Their response strikes too close to home for me and my country’s present state. The day after the election, I wrote a poet reflection in light of this passage. I’ll share it with you in Part 3.

(Read Part 3)

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