True or False

It's back-to-school time. This week, Dorry and I twice made the round-trip trek across Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and back, to take our two kids to the University of Pittsburgh for the upcoming school year. Wes is in his third year but, thanks to a lot of hard work, is registered as a senior. For Wes, graduation is just two more busy semesters away. Adrienne is at the other end of the undergraduate process. She's just beginning her studies at Pitt as a freshman. It's hard to believe that I'll have two kids in college when classes begin on Monday morning.

As we moved the kids in, you could feel the energy just coursing through the Pitt campus. The place is a beehive of activity, and no matter where you are, you have a view of the iconic, 43-story Cathedral of Learning - the tallest academic building in the western hemisphere.

Cathedral of Learning
University of Pittsburgh

College is a time of exposure to a slew of new ideas. Even at the small and somewhat insular Christian college where I earned my bachelor's degree, I was taught by an existentialist, a libertarian, a predestinarian, a constitutional originalist, and an Austrian economist, among others. How does someone sort all this out? How do we determine what's true and what's false? And does this whirlwind of worldviews threaten to blow down our faith in God? Once, a fellow church member asked my dad, who was then attending Lebanon Valley College, what he was majoring in at college.  "Philosophy," my father replied.  "But isn't that dangerous?" the well-meaning churchman asked, concerned that the study of philosophy might shake my dad's Christian faith. 

My father loved learning. He would have loved that his grand-kids are studying at a school with a Cathedral of Learning. Dad viewed faith and learning as going hand-in-hand. He never thought that Christians should be the least bit afraid of new ideas, theories, and discoveries. In a sermon that he preached in Millersville, PA -- itself a college town -- Dad reminded his parishioners that "[a]ll truth is fair game, because it is God's truth. Many a young man or woman's faith has been shaken, not because they discovered new truth, but because parents or teachers or pastors didn't show them how to fit new truths and old truths together into a whole."  My dad told his congregation, "Don't be afraid to learn something new. If it is true, and if what you already accept and live and operate by is true, the new thing will fit -- God made it that way. If it doesn't fit, maybe it's false, or maybe you are living your whole life on assumptions you thought were true but are false. This requires careful examination. ... This is the painful process of growing in knowledge of the truth. It means you have to be constantly opening yourself to re-evaluation."

"The question that bugs us when we get down to the nitty-gritty is just how we decide what is truth. ... [T]here are so many positions to choose from and so many persuasive advocates of these positions. Obviously, they can't all be right all the time. We must learn to discriminate. It is here that the Christian faith has so much to offer us. It gives us a standard; it gives us a rule of thumb to use as we decide what we will accept as true."

"Jesus said, 'I am the way, the truth and the life.' ... Jesus Christ [is] the ultimate truth by which we judge all alleged truths. What does this mean? It means that, in Jesus Christ, God showed us that love is at the heart of [God's] creation. The final truth that all else hangs upon is that love is the only enduring reality. God created for love; he redeems his creation for love. God is love, and on that truth all other truths hang. If they don't, they are lies."

"Where do you stand politically, on the right or on the left? How do you feel about the latest finds in genetic engineering? What about the legalization of marijuana or abortion? The Christian doesn't have to be bewildered or choose off the top of his or her head. The Christian decides where to stand, and what to accept as true, by placing it beside Jesus Christ and seeing whether they attract or repel each other. The test of truth is the love of God found in Jesus Christ." 

Wesley and Adrienne never got the chance to meet their grandfather, but I know that he would have shared the same words with his grandchildren at Pitt that he had for his congregation in Millersville: "[E]ducation never ends until we die; it is a vital area of our Christian discipleship. ... [T]here [must be] room, even in a secular education, to let Christ, the Truth, be at the top and let him draw all of your learning and experience into a meaningful whole. [Then,] 'You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'"  

"Education in the Christian Perspective"

-John 8:31-43

Preached at Grace UMC, Millersville, PA