In April 1966, the year of England’s last victory (or as a German friend once rightly pointed out, England’s ONLY victory) in the World Cup, the American Time magazine ran with a front cover that asked the question “Is God dead?”.
This was the decade of liberation – society was changing. We were freeing ourselves from the shackles of past traditions, and wriggling free to a new world where you could properly enjoy yourself. To many it seemed that the influence of God over culture was at an end. And in that sense anyone would have to agree – the God of the Bible from that time and ever since was no longer considered relevant. We have abandoned any idea that God is relevant to the decisions of public life – the shaping of laws, the decisions about what counts as accepted human activity. So you have to agree, God, in that sense, is dead.
Excellent news! We can now do things how we really want, and society will be so much the better for it!
Or will it?
This year, in April 2017, Time magazine ran with a front cover reminiscent of the “Is God dead?” of 1966. But this time, the question raised was slightly different: “Is truth dead? Again, a question you can’t help but answer in the affirmative. Yes, truth does appear to be dead, or at least seriously unwell. Times have changed. This is the era of fake news. We have become instinctively distrustful of many of the things we see. Is that photo real? Is that politician telling the truth? Is that body real? Can I trust that tweet?
The question is WHY? Why is truth now a dying commodity? I guess this was at some level what the Time magazine editors had in mind. Truth and God are connected. They are both following a similar path. It might have taken 50 years for us to realise it, but throwing out God may not have been the liberation we thought it was. You throw out God in 1966, and by 2017, you find truth gasping for its final breath. Are these two things connected?
Yes, they are. The God of the Bible stands for truth. He speaks, he promises, he assures. And he says, trust me, because I never lie. You can always trust my words even with your life. In fact, the Bible’s message is, that we SHOULD trust God’s words with our lives. “I am the way, the truth, and the life” Jesus declares. “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest” he promises.
Although the history of western cultures was always imperfect, and you cannot look to any human culture in history to discover what God is like, you cannot deny that much of the culture of nations like ours, and Europe and America, was shaped by the fact that a large number of people, and often especially those who shaped society, believed in a God who told the truth. That meant they valued truth “even when it hurt” to tell the truth.
What is more, if they really believed in him, they knew that he saw into their hearts, and that he would one day hold them to account for what they said. He cared about truth, and he expected them to too. That is still how believers in Jesus think and it powerfully affects the way that they act. We live how we do knowing that God sees it all, even our thoughts. Our desire is to please him in everything (even though we are constantly in need of forgiveness for failure).
But you take away that God from the heart of a culture, and things start to change. When something vital to the ecosystem dies, other things start to die too. Truth is just one casualty of abandoning God. And there are plenty of others. Freedom of speech. True tolerance of those that you disagree with. Care of the vulnerable and weak in society. And so the list could go on.
Someone once said “George Washington could not tell a lie. Richard Nixon could not tell the truth. And [Ronald Reagan] could not tell the difference”. And that’s funny!
But, also, its not funny. As we are starting to find out. Truth is dead, or dying, and that’s a big deal. But it is dying because we wanted God to be dead but did not realise how vital he was to so much that we hold dear.
The great thing is though, God is still a God of truth. His promises can still be trusted. And with those rock solid words he continues to hold out the promise of life and forgiveness – even to people who wanted him dead.
