A Crisis of Truth Leads to a Crisis of Guilt

If you are following the recent events in Washington, D.C., you have heard reporters, primarily from the left, say such things as "we are in a crisis of credibility."  What they are saying is something like this, "we don't like what was just said."  The dictionary defines the term "credibility gap" as "a disparity between what is said and the facts; the inability to have one's truthfulness or honesty accepted."  Really what we have today is a crisis of truth - we are not confident in knowing what is true or what is false today.  How did we get to this problem?


This crisis of truth is part of a much larger picture of American moral values today.  According to a recent Gallop poll, cited in an article found at The Patriot Post website - www.patriotpost.us/posts/49067 - Americans are becoming more socially liberal in their thinking over the past 15 years.  Of the 19 values listed in this poll, all were trending toward the liberal or libertarian perspective, not one toward the conservative one.  Let me cite just a couple of examples:
a.   69% accept sex between an unmarried man and woman
b.  63% accept gay or lesbian relationships
c.  62% accept having a baby outside of marriage
d.  57% favor doctor assisted suicides


Allow me to quote from the last paragraph of this article because it is so telling.  "While this poll is honestly disheartening, especially when considering what this holds for nation's future, it's helpful in effectively displaying just how pervasive has been the impact of postmodernist ideology upon American culture.  When the concept of absolute truth dies, those values based upon those standards quickly collapse, and pretty soon people have a difficult time distinguishing right from wrong or good from evil."  That last sentence hits the "nail on the head."


Let me give you an example of how far we have come.  Yesterday, Todd Starnes posted an article on the Townhall website: www.townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2017/05/16/school-praying-for-a-colleague-is-unacceptable.  "A school worker in Augusta, Maine was ordered to stop using religious phrases like 'I will pray for you' and "you were in my prayers' because such language is not allowed inside a public school building - even in private conversations with coworkers.  The Augusta School Department launched an investigation of Toni Richardson after they alleged she 'imposed some strong religious/spiritual belief system' towards a coworker.  The memorandum Ms. Richardson received from the school included: "In the context of the 'separation of church and state,' this case prohibits public school-sponsored religious expression.  Therefore, in the future, it is imperative that you do not use phrases that integrate public and private belief systems when in the public schools."


Friends, why would anyone get "bent out of shape" over someone praying for them?  It would seem that we could use all the prayer we could get these days.  I believe the answer is quite simple: To pray is to believe in a God to whom prayer is directed; to believe in a God is to believe in an absolute truth which our contemporary culture is vigorously denying exists.  If prayer in the public place can be snuffed out, it is just another affirmation that absolute truth does not exist.


I was forwarded an article this week by a friend which was also from The Patriot Post.  The article was written by Arnold Ahlert and is titled "Leftist Ideology's Greatest Threat: Guilt-Free Americans."  It can be found at: www.patriotpost.us/articles/49085.  Space does not allow me to quote all the article, but I highly recommend you download it and read it for yourself.  But let me just share a couple of paragraphs with you.  "In the last 50 years of culture wars in America, there has been no stronger weapon than guilt.  It is the Left's greatest hammer of progress - Mark Bauerlein, Professor of English at Emory University.  In an insightful column for American Greatness, Bauerlein nails the Left's fundamental reason for despising Donald Trump, 'He has not white guilt.  he doesn't feel any male guilt, either, or American guilt or Christian guilt,' Bauerlein explains.  'He talks about the United States with uncritical approval - "America first" - and that a thought crime in the eyes of liberals.'"


The author goes on: "Guilt - brilliantly sold as 'political correctness' to make it more palatable for an unsuspecting public - has enjoyed a long and prosperous run.  One that allowed leftists to dismiss every challenge to their agenda with epithets designed to simultaneously induce guilt and end debate.  Americans opposed to open borders or sanctuary cities?  Xenophobes.  Americans who eschew the LGBT agenda?  Trans- and homophobic.  Americans who question 'refugees' from terror-torn nations being granted asylum?  Islamophobic.  And son on and so forth.  'If you can persuade an opponent that he's wrong about a political issues, you can win the day's debate,' Bauerlein explains.  'But if you can make him feel guilty about his opinion, you've got him on the defensive forever.'"


As I read this article I began to see what is happening in Washington in a whole new light.  Much of the ineffectiveness of Congress today is due to these guilt feelings.  There is a guilt about the past: we attempt to remove Confederate statues as if their removal will change history.  But it won't.  There is the advocacy that all black people receive compensation from white people for the years of slavery in the past.  Friends, how long will we continue to live with that guilt?  America is no longer a slave nation; it has not been for over 150 years.  In fact, it took the lives of over 600,000 Americans to end slavery.  No white person today has owned slaves.  No black person today has been held in slavery.  yet we continue to live as if both still existed.  Guilt. 


This article got me thinking about the impact of guilt in one's life.  Guilt is a huge chain that enslaves one with an oppressive slavery.  What one sees and experiences is channeled through the lens of guilt.  Guilt is one of the major causes of depression today.  But there is a solution to guilt.  It is found in a relationship with Jesus Christ.  Only Jesus can set you free from the heavy chain of guilt.  It was Jesus who set Peter free from the guilt of his denial of Jesus as they talked along the shores of the Sea of Galilee (see John 21).  With Jesus, our past no longer is master over us, but, with the Apostle Paul we can say, "Forgetting what is behind, I strain forward to what lies ahead." 


Friends, we come full circle, don't we?  It is the truth found in Jesus Christ that sets us completely free.  When that truth is abandoned, then guilt becomes the inevitable consequence.


Heads-up: This next week President Trump travels to Israel and the Middle East.  This should be provide for some interesting news.