What Is Truth?

 I pray for friends and family imprisoned by The Big Lie; I pray for their deliverance. Only a miracle, by the Spirit of God, can set them free. 

Part of the miracle is our determination to know the truth, to tell the truth, to push ahead, and to push on. And to rely upon the work of truth-tellers like Dr Heather Cox Richardson​. 

You ask me, "What is truth?" And I say, "Truth is in the pudding." Does it affirm life for the many, or just the few? Does it rely upon the distinctions of race and class as if these were weapons of war against

others? Does it instill fear, irrational fear, a fear of conspiracies, space lasers, and vaccination chips? Truth stands on its own two legs, but lies cannot stand at all, and require a constant propping up, a constant effort to maintain the lie, because lies are fragile; lies have no inner life, no ability to bless, but only to bruise. Only by extreme effort, an effort that saps our strength and depletes the mind can a lie be sustained.

Truth, however, is of faith, hope, and love ... truth is of grace, mercy, and peace ... truth is a child laughing, a mother proud, a father pleased ... truth is generosity, kindness, and welcome ... truth is voting rights, marriage equality, and a woman's right to choose. Every one of these truths lifts up and broadens the expansion of life. That's how I know truth, and mostly likely you do, too.

Something I wrote in another blog that has bearing: "No Politics in Religion???" ...

"The Second Founding" by Eric Foner

A little "book review" by way of an email: "The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution," by Eric Foner ...  

Dr. Foner,

Many thanks for your recent book, “The Second Founding.” Shedding light on the jurisprudence (or the lack thereof) surrounding, not only the Constitution, but the Reconstruction Amendments.

I’m a retired Presbyterian minister living in Pasadena, enjoying the sunshine, having survived, “just barely,” the Donald Trump years, and fully realizing now that Trump was an “illustration” of ideas long regnant in the reactionary elements of American culture. I knew this, but never had I read a book specifically on the three Amendments, and the promise they still hold, and how the Court has so consistently, frustratingly, been willing to walk them back, or at least to walk them into a few places 

never intended.

You have made a lasting contribution to America’s quest for social health.

I purchased the book from a local book dealer (not Amazon, ha!) in Pasadena, Vroman’s - you may have heard of them, after hearing Fareed Zakaria so favorably review it.

As of late, I have found two other books, by historians, now a part of my little pantheon: “How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America," by Heather Cox Richardson, and “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,” by Kristin Kobes DuMez.

Anyway, I remain both fearful and hopeful for the welfare of our nation - there are terrible forces guided by “Plantation Capitalists” … and still forces of hope, as well, pursuing the “better angels.”

All the best.

My deepest thanks.

Tom
The Rev. Dr. Tom Eggebeen
Pasadena, CA

"Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy, 1888

 2.18.21 - Richardson referenced this in today's lecture ... read a lengthy quote ... starting on p.11 Gutenberg Project, 

Published 1888 - Edward Bellamy

By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way people lived

together in those days, and especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another,

perhaps I cannot do better than to compare society as it then was to a prodigious coach

which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomely along a very

hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and permitted no lagging, though the pace

was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard

a road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepest

ascents. These seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust,

their occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits of

the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for

them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for

himself and to leave it to his child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave

his seat to whom he wished, but on the other hand there were many accidents by which it

might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were very

insecure, and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and

falling to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and

help to drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It was naturally

regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one's seat, and the apprehension that this might

happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who

rode.

But did they think only of themselves? you ask. Was not their very luxury rendered

intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of their brothers and sisters in the harness,

and the knowledge that their own weight added to their toil? Had they no compassion for

fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguished them? Oh, yes; commiseration was

frequently expressed by those who rode for those who had to pull the coach, especially

when the vehicle came to a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing, or to a

particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining of the team, their agonized

leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, the many who fainted at the

rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very distressing spectacle, which often called

forth highly creditable displays of feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the

passengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, exhorting them to

patience, and holding out hopes of possible compensation in another world for the

hardness of their lot, while others contributed to buy salves and liniments for the crippled

and injured. It was agreed that it was a great pity that the coach should be so hard to pull,

and there was a sense of general relief when the specially bad piece of road was gotten

over. This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of the team, for there was always

some danger at these bad places of a general overturn in which all would lose their seats.

It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle of the misery of the

toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers' sense of the value of their seats upon

the coach, and to cause them to hold on to them more desperately than before. If the

passengers could only have felt assured that neither they nor their friends would ever fall

from the top, it is probable that, beyond contributing to the funds for liniments and

bandages, they would have troubled themselves extremely little about those who dragged

the coach.

I am well aware that this will appear to the men and women of the twentieth century an

incredible inhumanity, but there are two facts, both very curious, which partly explain it.

In the first place, it was firmly and sincerely believed that there was no other way in

which Society could get along, except the many pulled at the rope and the few rode, and

not only this, but that no very radical improvement even was possible, either in the

harness, the coach, the roadway, or the distribution of the toil. It had always been as it

was, and it always would be so. It was a pity, but it could not be helped, and philosophy

forbade wasting compassion on what was beyond remedy.

The other fact is yet more curious, consisting in a singular hallucination which those on

the top of the coach generally shared, that they were not exactly like their brothers and

sisters who pulled at the rope, but of finer clay, in some way belonging to a higher order

of beings who might justly expect to be drawn. This seems unaccountable, but, as I once

rode on this very coach and shared that very hallucination, I ought to be believed. The

strangest thing about the hallucination was that those who had but just climbed up from

the ground, before they had outgrown the marks of the rope upon their hands, began to

fall under its influence. As for those whose parents and grandparents before them had

been so fortunate as to keep their seats on the top, the conviction they cherished of the

essential difference between their sort of humanity and the common article was absolute.

The effect of such a delusion in moderating fellow feeling for the sufferings of the mass

of men into a distant and philosophical compassion is obvious. To it I refer as the only

extenuation I can offer for the indifference which, at the period I write of, marked my

own attitude toward the misery of my brothers.

The Splintering Effect

The principle proof of evil's presence is the splintering effect, the breaking apart and the breaking down, of life's essential connections.

Whether it be Cain killing his brother, Abel, or Elisha using his newfound power to kill some children, the splintering effect sets one against the other - people, communities, entire nations, the world.

Jesus fought evil's effects by crossing boundaries and going where "proper people" didn't go.

The Apostle Paul speaks of Christ reconciling the world, through the cross, through his death, by his suffering, to repair the damages of sin.

Ultimately leading Paul to the glorious affirmation, that in Christ all the usual categories of splintering are overcome, so that in Christ, there is no longer Jew or Greek, no longer slave or free, no longer male and female.

Movement Conservatives*, of either the political or evangelical bent, require splintering for their purposes.

They thrive on division, folks pitted against one another - the usual categories of splintering: saved or damned, man or woman, white or colored, taker or maker, capitalist or socialist, straight or queer, strong or weak, Reagan or FDR, public schools or private schools, voting rights or voter fraud, voting in person or voting by mail, masks or no masks, stay home or go to church.

For the Movement Conservative, everything is a reason for splintering, because in splintering, they find their perverse strength.

Movement Conservatives are not strong enough in the usual shove and push of politics and faith; they don't have the votes to win, except through gerrymandering and voter suppression, and likely Russian influence.

Nor do they have a Gospel of hope and reconciliation - needing instead schools and churches with harsh boundaries, seasoned with white supremacy, male dominance, the love of guns, and the hatred of LDGBQ persons.

Movement Conservatives have to divide in order to conquer, and let's be honest here, the Movement Conservative is determined to conquer, to win everything, to destroy democracy and rebuild the Oligarchy (Southern Style), to undo FDR's social supports and replace them with Reagan's supply-side economics, to undo voting rights, civil rights, rights for women and people of color, because such rights for all, they claim, diminish the rights, the liberties, the privileges, of the few, those few who alone know how to run things, to advance the American cause, or the cause of Christ.

That some should be Movement Conservatives for the sake of politics doesn't surprise or sadden me. There have always been those like the Genesis story of Lamech who love the blood and gore of revenge and victory.

But what truly saddens me, though it doesn't surprise me either, is how the evangelicals have bought into Movement Conservatism lock, stock, barrel.

In so doing, evangelicals have abandoned the salvation of Christ, rejected his purpose, denied his call to discipleship, and joined the hostile crowds standing in Pilate's courtyard to shout at the top of their lungs, hands raised in praise, "Crucify him."

Evangelicals have bowed the knee to Baal, Mammon, and Ceaser. With their trumped up claims to "freedom of worship," and personal rights, they trample upon the public good and further splinter the nation. They no longer serve Christ, but some distorted version thereof.

History is full of such hideous moments: and of more recent times: the church in Spain with Franco, the church in Italy with Mussolini, and the church in Germany with Hitler. Fascism, national socialism, militarism - white supremacy, racial purity, the dominance of the rich, the subjugation of women, and government by brutal power.

Movement Conservatives are out to get it all, and if they can't get it all, they'll destroy it all.

In the meantime, dear friends, be smart, be careful, wash your hands, wear your masks and don't be misled by those who would splinter the nation while working for their own privilege and power.

If you're a Christian, spend some time in the Gospels, especially the Sermon on the Mount and Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

And to all my friends here, if you've read this through, I salute you for your care and compassion, your larger sense of life and hope, your commitment to the common good of this nation, and the welfare of the world.

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*For Movement Conservatives, see the work of historian, Heather Richardson ...