Truthiness is a word whose time has come.
It was coined by Steven Colbert on "The Colbert (pronounced coal-bear) Report (pronounced repoor) on Comedy Central.
It refers to how a person can claim to know something instinctively without facts or reason.
A gut feeling, to the truthinist, is superior to facts or to logic, evidence, or rational examination.
Colbert uses truthiness as part of his political and social satire, knowing it's not a valid way of reasoning.
Others, like Bill O'Reilly and Michael Moore use it as a tool in forwarding their agendas by appealing to fear and emotion instead of intellect.
The issue here is the value of Truth vs.
Truthiness in religion and the place of the faithful in forming religious doctrine.
What is the responsibility of the prelates? Should they stand before their congregations and proclaim, unequivocally, what is good, evil, right, and wrong? Or, should they respect the intelligence of the educated and enlightened flocks and explain why they believe as they do? It's a tenet of our faith that truth is a good thing.
Jesus said in John 8:31 The truth shall make you free.
That source makes truth a thing of unquestionable value.
I grant that Jesus was talking about His truth making us free from sin.
But it's possible to broaden the concept without altering the validity.
If truth brings freedom in one case, why not others? It's impossible to make informed decisions without having all the pertinent facts.
Only by knowing the truth can we be sure that our actions are appropriate.
It's possible to contrast Truth, which has never been a tool of the Devil, to Truthiness, which has too often been a tool of leaders who want to declare but not explain--command but not justify.
Rather, we should be allowed--even encourage--to discuss the issues.
If their arguments are sound, well reasoned, and based on clear understanding and interpretation of Scripture, followers will see the truth of it and agree with their leaders.
Should anyone object to that? And if we disagree, what better way to understand the other's point of view than to have an open and honest discussion where the facts and reasoned thoughts of both sides are laid out in a logical and rational way? Too often, theological intercourse is simple tautology.
"I say it because it is true, and it is true because I say it is.
" We are, or should be, too smart to accept that reasoning.
What's called for is debate.
A debate, by the way, isn't the same as an argument.
Technically, you use an argument to support your stand on the subject being debated, but we won't go into that.
It's enough to remember that a debate is a dialogue in which both sides present facts, reasons, and arguments to show that what they believe is true.
It's an exchange in which people who disagree on something talk to each other to discover why the other side believes as it does.
Each side loudly propounding a belief while simply declaring that the other side is wrong isn't debate.
Jesus wasn't afraid of debate.
In Mark 11:27 - 12:44, we read that He debated the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders in the temple courts.
Granted, He recognized that they were simply representatives of the Sanhedrin who were not really interested in the answer to the two questions they asked except as far as they might trap him and expose him to the people as a false teacher.
The important point is that Jesus was willing to debate before the public so the truth could be known.
That's an example that can't be ignored.
Among honest people of good will, there is no danger in discussing differences of opinion.
Likewise, there is no value to the community in condemning an idea without discussion.
That means wide discussion by everyone concerned, not just among the "Powers" in the church who will then tell the others what to believe.
This is not the Tenth Century.
People are educated.
Scripture is available for everyone who wants to read it.
If people are to trust the dictates of their churches, they must be allowed to question how the dictates were arrived at.
The congregation must be a part of the dialogue.
If church leaders believe that men wearing dresses, abortion, consuming alcohol, smoking, stem-cell research, women wearing pants, or homosexuality is bad, let them clearly say why.
Let us understand how these conclusions were arrived at and whether they're clearly scriptural or personal opinion based on an interpretation of what the scriptures may mean.
It's not enough to simply declare that God Said So because too much of what's being stated in God's name is things that never even existed when the Scriptures were being written and assembled.
The fundamental tenets stated in the Scriptures are as true now as they ever were.
In spite of lame attempts by "motivational speakers," the Golden Rule has never been improved upon.
Nor has love your neighbor as yourself or a man of understanding will attend to wise counsel.
What is written is true, and what is true is good.
On the other hand, though, simply stating that stem-cell research or abortion is evil because God Said So is absurd on the face of it.
Whatever I believe, I have to recognize that the subjects are never mentioned in Scripture.
True, it's possible to trace the effect of stem-cell research or abortion back to their roots and decide that they constitutes the destruction of human life.
But even then, it's not such a simple matter to determine that the destruction of human life (or something that has the eventual capacity to become human life) is always a bad thing.
Scripture doesn't say so.
And, if ever there were ample examples of extenuating circumstances that involved the killing of people, it's in Scripture.
God determined that it was necessary to destroy the entire Egyptian army in order to help Moses and his people escape.
How much less a good does it seem to destroy a single cell in an effort to discover ways to save actual human lives? The argument by some that our beliefs should be based purely on the literal interpretation of Scripture--so there's nothing to debate--seems weakened by the actuality of how we follow what's written--even when it's unequivocal.
For example, ifsomeone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, I simply remind him that the Bible clearly declares, in Leviticus 18:22, that it's an abomination: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
End of debate.
It follows, then, that since I believe this and use it to defend my belief, to be logically consistent, I must believe all of the laws of Leviticus.
For example, some Jews feel that even though eating shellfish is an abomination because Leviticus 11, verse 10 says, And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you, and verse 11 says, ye shall not eat of their flesh, they still eat shrimp because it's not the same kind of abomination as homosexuality.
Does that mean there are degrees of abomination? In another case, if touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean, as it says in Leviticus 11: 8, You shall not eat of their flesh or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you, does that mean we not only can't eat ham, but we can't play football either? And there are all those men who get their hair cut, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden in Leviticus 19:27, You shall not round off the side-growth on your head, or destroy the side-growth beard.
Are they committing an abomination? Is it the same as homosexuality or eating pork? What about the farmer who violates the Law by planting two different crops in the same field, and then wears garments made of two different kinds of thread? Leviticus 19:19 says, you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, you shall not put on cloth from a mixture of two kinds of material.
To make it worse, he curses a lot.
Leviticus 24:15-16 says, Anyone who blasphemes his God shall bear his guilt, and if he also pronounces the name of the Lord, he shall be put to death.
The whole community shall stone him; stranger or citizen.
Are we obligated to get the whole town together to stone him? Speaking of death, there's also Exodus 35:2 that says that if someone works on the Sabbath, he should be put to death: Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.
Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the whole community to help me?As I write this, the spirit of my old Sunday School teacher sits at my shoulder and whispers the right thing to think into my mental ear.
It says that these are laws from the Old Testament and need not be literally followed.
It's true that many of the people who use Leviticus to support their condemnation of homosexuality are Christians who don't recognize the Torah as the final word of God.
They argue that the Tanakh, the whole Jewish scripture, was supplanted by the Gospels.
Yet, the Gospels don't ever mention homosexuality, sowing mixed crops, or eating shell fish.
Where, then, does their justification come from? That only raises the knottier questions of what, from the Hebrew scriptures, are we to follow and what not? Jesus made it very clear in Matthew 22: 37 that the Commandments stated in Exodus were as valid in His day as they had ever been.
Why not the same observance of other things in the Old Testament? So, what's my point? Well, I've made no pronouncements nor stated my personal beliefs or those of my congregation.
I've not ask that anyone believes as I do.
I've only said that we should ask questions and discuss the answers.
And don't tell me, as I was often told as a child, that I wouldn't understand.
Or that as a layman, I don't have the training.
I've got as good a mind and probably as many degrees as the person leading the service, and I'll bet I've studied Scripture longer.
I will understand when I'm give the facts.
I want to ask questions, and I expect to get answers.
Questions are the first step in debate.
Debate, as Jesus showed us, is a valid method to discover the truth.
And the truth shall make us free.
Jesus loves me.
This I know for the Bible tells me so.
There's nothing to debate there.
Scripture tells me of God's love.
Scripture doesn't tell me anywhere that I can find that a woman who works full-time while raising a child, keeping a home, helping others in the community, and obeying the law is an evil person--even if she's never been married.
If my church tells me she is, I want to hear the arguments that prove the case.
In fact, I want to hear the arguments that prove every point of view I'm asked to accept.
And that's not debatable.