Defining truth

Truth is very important to me. I was a reporter for about 10 years, and reporting facts and both sides to a story is something I took very seriously. I did make some mistakes when I first started, and it is easy to slant a story the way you want, but I had a good first editor and a couple more after that who steered me in the right direction.

I once did a story on a local man who had been issued a warrant for his arrest for not paying his library fines. His lawyer got himself on television news and seemed to try to make the library look bad. He bypassed his (us) hometown newspaper, so I was put in the position to cover the story the day after it had already broke on TV. It irked me that this lawyer bypassed us and went straight to the TV news stations in a nearby larger town, so I interviewed the library staff and board to get more of their side, which I didn't think the television reporters did too well. 

I knew the people who worked at the library and some of the board members and thought a lot of them. I knew they were just trying to get their money. They didn't really want to throw the guy in jail. He owed a decent chuck from what I remember and ignored all their attempts to collect from him. I did quote the TV news story, but I didn't talk to the man or his lawyer. I got a call from the lawyer after the story ran. He was mad I didn't get their side. I told him if he had called his local newspaper first, we would've gotten his side. It made me feel better to handle it that way, but that really wasn't good journalism. I told the truth only from the side I preferred. Even if I thought the lawyer was in the wrong, that wasn't very professional of me.

That happened about 20 years ago. I believe it has become more common than it was then. Reporters have become lazy and opinionated, and we as news consumers now tend to pick the news that we agree with the most.

It's refreshing to me to see news entities cover both sides objectively. I recently saw one TV news station, after pushing the Covid-19 vaccine almost daily and showing numbers that showed unvaccinated individuals were more likely to be hospitalized or die of Covid than those vaccinated, later run a story about four deaths in one day, which stated two were vaccinated and two were not. It didn't fit what they had been saying over and over, but they gave all the facts anyway, and I appreciated that. 

I like to be left to make up my own mind and form my own opinions about things after being given the facts. That's why I try to look at both sides of an argument, idea, incident, or whatever before I form an opinion. I don't always do it, but I try. 

It's also important to me to be truthful... period. I have a real problem with stating something as someone's truth when it doesn't line up with facts. I think it's better to be honest with someone than to follow along in their delusions or follow a path that is contrary to what I believe is right and wrong.

I am reading a wonderfully written book by Hillary Morgan Ferrer, "Mama Bear Apologetics, Empowering you Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies." I would recommend this for any parent or grandparent. She also has a great website with lots of resources, mamabearapologetics.com.

In her book she talks about linguistic theft, which she says is "redefining words to get your way and avoid reality." A word that is often misused is "truth." We are now encouraged to use descriptive words before "truth," like "my truth" or "her truth," but there is only "the truth." Ferrer warns in her book that the misuse of the word "truth" is unraveling the foundation of our children's reality. It makes it difficult for young people to stand for truth when they don't really know what it is. Even science is ignored in our culture's current definition of truth. One good example is biological sex.

So what do we, as people who care about truth and meanings of words, do about this? I believe, as the author does, that we need to stand in defense of truth, even for the truth in the meanings of our words. I think it's extremely important today to contest fallacies. Just saying you think someone is wrong or something like, "You know what, I don't agree with that," doesn't make you hateful or bigoted. 

As Christians, we don't want to be seen as ungodly in the way we fight back against cultural lies and the way people pervert the meanings of words to make their version of reality sound true, but we are not supposed to sit back and allow that to happen unchallenged. There are ways to fight back in a more godly way.

First, in order to know truth, we must start with the source of truth itself - Jesus. In order to do that, we must know Him. In order to know Him, we must read the Bible and pray to Him so we can have a relationship with Him. We also must speak up, but we can do that without being a jerk. If you are trying to make a point in order to make someone else look bad, then you're being a jerk. But if you sincerely seek truth and want to share it with others, you could change hearts and minds. 

That should be our goal as Christians. Changing hearts. If you know your subject and can argue it well, that's a great start. But then you should know God's Word well and approach the argument with the intention of actually engaging with them, which means listening to their side and looking at them as the child of God they are.