You’re probably aware that former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump was recently interviewed by the National Association of Black Journalists, to much criticism and fanfare. Trump was asked if he thinks his opponent Kamala Harris is on the Democrat presidential ticket because she’s black (she is of Indian and Jamaican heritage). He responded by criticizing how she used to always tout her Indian heritage, but then, says Trump, she suddenly began to tout her black heritage. It seems that Trump was responding to a hostile interviewer, and was voicing his chagrin over the current day’s racial obsession, which allows those who have a mixed heritage to identify with whatever part of their heritage fits the occasion. Nevertheless, another ugly Trump interview.
Byron Donalds, a Florida congressman who has supported Trump, and is black, was then interviewed on ABC News by George Stephanopoulos, who asked him to condemn the president’s supposedly racist comments. Donalds wouldn’t say that the president was wrong, citing how relatively little time was taken up with these comments, and how there are bigger issues. Stephanopoulos wasn’t having Donalds’s redirect, so both men went back and forth about the topic for about five minutes. It was, predictably, an ugly segment for truth-seekers but a beautiful segment for entertainment seekers.
What caught my eye was what I saw immediately after on Twitter/X. Liberal-leaning respondents touted Stephanopoulos' “dominance” of Donalds, how he “wiped the floor” with the congressman. But conservative-leaning respondents watched the exact same segment and concluded the opposite: Donalds “owned” the host, and “crushed” him for his ugly questions and narrative.
Hmm...Well, which is it? Who won this debate? What’s true? Both sides seem convinced that they represent the truth, and that it matters immensely.
Let’s not miss this: Both sides say that truth exists, that it matters, and that they themselves see it clearly, as should anyone else with a brain. But—and this is a snapshot of social media—what they see as “true” cannot be proved beyond doubt to one who is biased in another direction. And since, having all “gone their own way” (Is.53:6), all are biased, arguing about it seems like a losing battle.
The fact that we acknowledge truth’s existence and that we care deeply about it at least suggests–if it doesn’t entirely prove–the existence of God. How can could truth exist if there isn’t at least someone who sees it clearly? Many people tout some version of moral relativism today, but I’m not convinced anyone actually believes it (because then crime doesn't exist, etc.). Instead, we all, like C.S. Lewis famously said, feel this sense of pressure from the outside, this moral standard pressing in on us, holding us accountable. That standard is truth, albeit mingled with our biases and preferences. But to come into light is to say, “Truth exists, and I’m too invested in myself and the world to see it clearly. But I want to grow up. So I’m going to ask God to lead me.” That’s why Scripture says that those who seek the truth come to the light, who is Jesus himself, the Word made flesh, and their coming shows that God has led them there (cf. Jn.3:20-21). They see through the human impulse to reconstruct truth according to personal interests, and they want to advance to what Francis Schaeffer called "true truth": That which is true regardless of how it might impact my life as currently constructed. Again, they’re ready to grow up.
May you be among them.
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