The Rigidity of Truth

Last Thursday I was in Boston to tape a couple of interviews for CatholicTV. In one I was asked about our television series and particularly the Common Ground phenomena; a segment for unity week next Spring. In the other we discussed my book, The Moral Premise for communication week.

My enjoyment of Catholicism emanates from a scientific notion (I have a bachelor's in Physics) that truth does not change; that the answers that mathematic problems produce are not up for a vote; that there is a constant value to the gravitational constant, and just as there is a sense of univesal wrongness about lying, so there is a rigidity to moral truth. That gives me security. I don't have to chase what is true. From day-to-day I know that gravity will pull my feet to the ground with the same force; and that my moral obedience to the rules which God has laid down are constant, trusthworthy, and to the extent I follow all of that, I will be safe and happy.

But not so when it comes to politics or the moral RELATIVISM of America today. The political divide we experience in America today is about truth, nothing less. Christian (true Chrsitians not pretend ones) will hate falsehood and those that perpetuate it, and the pagans will hate Christians trying to tell them what is false, as if calling evil right makes it good. There will be no unity as long as one person bears false witness to the other. There will be no peace as long as political ads blantantly lie about the other candidate or issues — like the lying Proposal 2 radio and TV ads in Michigan where it claims McCain is against all stem cell research. The ad NEVER mentions that the proposal is about embryonic stem cells. The ad says McCain can't be trusted because he voted FOR stem cell research and then AGAINST it. (I'm Barack Obama and I approved this ad.)

Either Obama is an idiot when it comes to defining the difference between the successful therapies of adult stem cell research and the failed research surrounding the embryonic kind, which is ethical and moral -- or he's lying. Take your pick. It has to be one or the other.

The divide should exist as long as there's a difference between truth and falsehood, life and death. All of this talk about healing our differeences is hideous if it means "get along at any cost." Or if it means "tolerate evil." I, for one, think it is sucicide— physically and psycholigcally— to embrace a so called moral truth that changes. It is stupid to think that we can all make up our own moral right and wrong and get along. It is illogical, idiotic, and someting only liberal professors could believe.

After my taping at CatholicTV in Boston, my religious formation director, Fr. Dennis Brown OMV, took me on a short walking tour of downtown. We visited some old churches and the library among other things. I picked up a flyer at Old South Church in Boston that told of the church's history. In one paragraph it discussed Old South's denominational history mentioned The United Church of Christ (which Old South is today), the Evangelical Church, the Reformed Chuch, and the Congregational Christian Churches. Then there is this sentence:

The Christian Churches sprang up in the late 1700s and early 1800s in reaction to the theological and organizational rigidity of the Methodsit, Presbyterian and Baptist churches of the time.

Please contemplate, for a moment, the silliness of that sentence. Conceptually, of course it is wrong because the (original) Christian Church sprung up in the first century when the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost and the Apostles spread out and founded the first Christian Churches. (See the good comment from Greg Brekke below.) But the sentence implies, that the United Church of Christ (et al) began because the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists were just too rigid and inflexible for the culture. As if religious truth was a fad that changed with the times. As if gravity should be flexible and not so rigid. As if the Methodists are not the result of the Church of England being too "rigid" or the Baptists (which one of 2,000 I wonder) saw the Presbyterians too rigid, or all three of them found Catholicism to rigid. As if the United Church of Christ is NOT rigid and is "right" because it holds few views about what is "right." Right! Listen to yourself, people.

Rigidity is good when we're dealing with truth. This is Obama's problem. You can't say abortion is wrong, as he has suggested by claiming to be for reducing abortions, and then turn around and claim his first action has president is to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, legislation that will increase the killing of black babies, which now is 5X greater than whites. That's racism and fulfills the plan of Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger and others who wanted to eliminate Blacks from society. They are succeeding with Obama (who really isn't white, they say) taking leadership. He must not be black, but just pretending to be black so he can get the black vote.

King David sang that he loved the Law of God. Why? Because it never changed and thus God could be trusted. Obama can't, because he ignores the rigid laws of reality.