Has Truth Perished?

In the March 29, 2017 issue of Christian century,  Brian Bantum, black theology professor at Seattle Pacific University, asks the question, "Who gets to interpret me?"  Or this question could be rephrased, "How does society define me?"  Or "Who in society oppresses me?"

Far too often, in American history, rich, white, males have defined who Brian is.  Sometimes it has been religious, rich, white, males who have defined who everyone in society is; in other words, they have played the role of God.  And they have passed and enforced laws based on these flawed definitions.

Professor Bantum begins his article in this way:

"They say it's best to avoid conversations about religion, sex, and politics. . . . Foolishly or not, I tend not to heed it.  But recently I have found myself in strange territory.  Not simply angry or frustrated, but lost---as though we were all looking out the same window yet describing different worlds.  Again and again, conversation on these subjects conjure Babel.  We want to see and know God, but it all ends in chaos and confusion."  Standards of truth have disappeared replaced by deception and lies.  We talk past each other on issues such as Black Lives Matter and gay people and a host of other social and political issues.

Race is a white "social construction."  "For centuries bodies like mine have been read [by rich, white, males] as dangerous, unwholesome, deviant, and. unqualified."

Bantum refers to Gal. 3:28 where Paul refers to Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female.  During Paul's time Jews defined Gentiles as inferior and unclean; the gulf was wide and unbridgeable.  The socioeconomic gap between slave and owner was huge; so also the gap between male and female.  In Christ, these sinful distinctions had to go, both theologically and socially, especially in the church community.

Bantum refers often to the Protestant Reformation as a time of "profound cultural and political upheaval. . . . a church struggling to gain its bearings in a radically shifting social, religious, and cultural moment. . . .a crisis of truth."  Bantum does not refer to Jeremiah 7, but I see in this chapter another "crisis of truth" and obedience to that truth.

Jeremiah declares that truth has perished, disappeared, even in the sacred Temple.  "Your leaders are handing you a pack of lies."  The people from top to bottom, including prophets and priests, were doctoring the biblical truths, twisting words such as shalom to cause people to ignore idolatry and oppression, making people think "Everything is fine."

They chose to ignore the biblical truth that Jeremiah was proclaiming:

     that the sacred Temple was a den of robbers,
     that more lies than truth were spoken in the Temple,
     that religious people worshipping in the Temple were oppressing the poor.

The Protestant Reformation was not radical enough; we needed but did not get a Protestant Revolution.  The Second Protestant Reformation should include the following four biblical principles:  the present and social dimensions of the kingdom of God, a combination of love and justice, radical Jubilee justice, and the release of the oppressed of the world.



PS     About the same time that Bantum wrote his article in the Christian Century, the Conservative Wall Street Journal published an editorial about Trump's huge credibility problem.  And TIME's front page headline blared "Is Truth Dead?"  Truth and trust are closely related.