Do You Desire Truth More Than Victory?
Paul Tan, in his Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations, gives us a story about Diogenes. “Diogenes (412 B.C.) made himself most unwelcome in Athens by trudging about barefoot without wearing a proper outer robe. He was best-known for carrying a lantern during daylight hours, thrusting the lantern in the face of people, ‘I am looking for an honest man.’ He never found the man.”1
Truth and honesty are in short supply in our world. Modern thinkers are well aware of this deficiency and have come to a solution: doubt everything. Everyone, they think, is out to get them. Your truth claim is your power play. That’s the essence of postmodernism. By proclaiming a “truth,” you seek power over others. It is hard to see how a society filled with mutual distrust can long continue.
These days we have the spectacle of an apparently defeated president claiming that the Nov 3 election was “rigged” and his opponent is trying to “steal” the election. In a dishonest world, it isn’t hard to believe someone might try to “rig” an election. The fact is, election officials know about this tendency in human hearts. They provide several ways to check results in elections through the counting process. Each state organizes its process somewhat differently, but none of them approaches elections with a Pollyannaish naïveté. Safeguards are in place in every state.
Currently, Joe Biden is ahead in the count in enough states to give him the victory if the result holds. Experienced observers insist that there is no reason to suspect the current results will change through the counting process. Donald Trump and his surrogates thus must resort to claims of fraud for any hope of success.
The Trump campaign is thousands of votes behind in more than one key state. To succeed, his efforts must overturn more than one result. That includes Pennsylvania and at least two others of the larger states. Remember that the process differs in each state. That would mean a different kind of fraud would have to be in play in each different state. Furthermore, many officials at key steps in the election process would have to be “in” the scheme. No single actor could pull this off in multiple states at the same time.
In other words, in a close election, such as Bush v. Gore, when the results of one state would make the difference, the impact of a fraud in that one state would be 1) simpler to perpetrate and 2) easier to pull off. We are asked to believe that this time fraud occurred in multiple states at the same time.
Chuck Colson, in his autobiography, Born Again, talked about the real conspiracy of which he was a part: Watergate. He used his experience as an apologetic for the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the Watergate scandal, a handful of men were “in” on the scam. As pressure mounted, in a very short time the conspirators cracked and the truth came out. On the other hand, Colson said, the twelve apostles, though telling an incredible story, never deviated from their testimony. No one “cracked.” According to tradition, most of the apostles were put to death for their story. Their testimony to that truth persists to this day, and millions of us believe it.
In this election, most conservative Christians supported the policies of President Trump, especially as against those Joe Biden espouses. Most conservative Christians greatly desired the success of the Trump campaign. Those desires now drive a desperate search for any way to make the Trump campaign succeed.
How far are you willing to go to see your desires succeed? Would you support success based on falsehood? Would you support success that overturns the Constitution? How far would you go?
The Lexham Theological Wordbook defines truth this way: “Truth refers to what is real, trustworthy, dependable, genuine, or valid. It carries the sense of real-world dependability and genuine disclosure—showing things as they really are.”2 When it comes to all the claims wildly passed around on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, can these claims really pass the test of what is “real, trustworthy, dependable, genuine, or valid”?
In Ps 51.6, David sings: “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.”
As an outside observer, the whole scene is very grievous to me. Many Christians seem to be valuing victory more than truth. If God wills that “our side” loses this time, should that not be enough for us?
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
- Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations : A Treasury of Illustrations, Anecdotes, Facts and Quotations for Pastors, Teachers and Christian Workers (Garland TX: Bible Communications, 1996), 1528. [↩]
- Douglas Mangum, “Truth,” in Lexham Theological Wordbook, ed. Douglas Mangum et al., Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014). [↩]