My Search for Truth

My desire to understand the truth about all aspects of our world is insatiable. After 40 years of serving as a teacher and academic administrator at four Christian liberal arts colleges, I formulated a description of higher education at its best in just three words: “Conversations Seeking Truth.”

But the goal of uncovering the truth about any given contentious issue has fallen on hard times because of a strong tendency to gravitate toward one of two unacceptable extremes: relativism and tribalism.

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Imitating Jesus

I recently had the delightful experience of reading a book that beautifully captured a number of my deeply held beliefs about the nature of my commitment to the Christian faith. Especially gratifying was the fact that the author, Gerald L. Sittser, and I served together as members of the administration at Northwestern College in Iowa in the 1980s and became good friends (so, he will always be “Jerry”).

In his splendid book Resilient Faith, Jerry makes it abundantly clear that the calling of each Christian is to “imitate” Jesus, who “changed everything” (p. 106). Consider his various descriptors:

  •  Jesus is the “center of reality” (p. 174)
  •  Jesus was at the “heart of the Christian way of life” (p. 174).
  • “All holiness” derived from Jesus (p. 124).
  • The early Christians had a “new identity in Christ” (p. 105)
  • “Conversion to Christ implied conformity to Christ” (p. 177)

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A Redemptive Approach to Human Sexuality Disagreements within Christian Churches

Numerous Christian churches, and their denominations, are being torn apart by an inability to orchestrate respectful conversations among members who strongly disagree regarding human sexuality issues. This is especially true for the issue of same-sex marriage, where the major disagreement is between those who hold to a “traditional” view of marriage (God intends for marriage to be reserved for a man and a woman) and a “non-traditional” view (God will bless a same-sex marriage where the partners make a covenant commitment to love each other for a lifetime).

I will now point my readers to a splendid example of how one church, Covenant Christian Reformed Church (CCRC) in Sioux Center, Iowa, under the leadership of their Senior Pastor, Joel Kok, has modeled a redemptive path in the midst of this current vitriol. My hope and prayer is that this story will inspire many other Christian churches, and their denominations, to replicate the redemptive approach exemplified at CCRC.

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Respectful Conversations in a Family that Disagrees

It cannot be denied that discourse these days is increasingly characterized by a rampant tribalism; which has been described as an us-versus-them mentality where it is believed that with regard to any contentious issue, “me-and-my-people” possess the “whole truth,” while “those other folks” have none of the truth; leading to the conclusion that there is nothing to be learned from talking to those other folks.

But who are “me-and-my-people?” They could be members of my church, or my church’s denomination, or my political party, or the fraternal organization to which I belong, or my circle of friends. But what about my biological family? Can I describe them as belonging to a group designated as “me-and-my-people?”

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Tolerating Competing Truths in Politics

In his compelling book The Last Politician, Franklin Foer asserts that “Politics is … an ethos that requires tolerance of competing truths” (pp. 3-4). He portrays President Biden as tolerant of “competing truths,” which leads to Biden resorting to “old-fashioned politics: deal-making andcompromise.”

Since the words “deal-making and compromise” have fallen on hard times. I will attempt to explain how I believe President Biden is using these words as an expression of his tolerance of competing truths.

I don’t believe that the words “competing truths” mean that here are “alternative facts” about a given issue or situation; a non-sensical idea perpetrated by Kellyanne Conway. There is only “one truth” about the issue or situation at hand. To be sure, only an all-knowing God has a complete grasp of that truth. And the fact that I am not God presents a considerable challenge.

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My Game-Changers Regarding Same-Sex Marriage

In the pietistic Lutheran Church in which I was nurtured as a young Christian, we never talked about homosexuality or same-sex marriage. The traditional view that marriage God intends for marriage to be reserved for a man and woman was just assumed. It was like the air we breathed.

I now embrace a non-traditional view of same-sex marriage; believing that God will bless a same-sex marriage wherein each marriage partner has made a covenant commitment to love the other person for a lifetime. What precipitated this change in belief? I attribute it to two “game-changers.”

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My Dream for a New Respectful Conversation Beginning at my Church

After eight years of splendid ministry at the church I attend, American Reformed Church in Orange City, Iowa, our co-pastors, Mike and Elizabeth Hardeman, resigned to accept a call at another RCA church in Pella, Iowa. Verlyn Boone was then appointed as a transitional pastor, charged with the task of shepherding our congregation toward the appointment of a new pastor or pastoral team. To inform that search, Verlyn asked members of our congregation to envision “new beginnings” at our church. What follows is my dream for a new beginning, which I shared with the congregation on October 1, 2023

Pastor Verlyn has encouraged members of our church to envision possible “new beginnings” for our congregation. I have a really big dream for one such new beginning; a dream that some would say is impossible to realize.

My dream is that all of us at our church learn how to disagree lovingly and respectfully about our strong disagreements about some contentious issues, such as political affiliation and same-sex marriage; two issues about which I know we have some strong disagreements.

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Telling Both Sides of the Story

The following text will be published as a “My Turn” column in the October 4, 2023 issue of the Capital-Democrat, a local newspaper serving Sioux County in Iowa.

In our increasingly tribalistic us-versus-them culture, in which so many Americans believe that “me and my people” (e.g., my Church, my religious denomination, my political party, my circle of friends) have captured the complete truth about any controversial issue and “those other folks” have captured none of that truth, it is becoming increasingly difficult to convince anyone that there may be a contrary belief that differs from the story my people tell.

A glaring example of this problem is a claim made by Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina, a Republican presidential hopeful for 2024.  Scott asserts, based on his own experience, that everyone in America, independent of race/ethnicity and gender, has an equal opportunity to realize the American dream of forging a successful life in America.

But there is another side to that story.

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Possible Limits on Free Speech

The Supreme Court recently made three momentous decisions on Affirmative Action, the forgiveness of student debts for college education and religious freedom. The media and internet have been flooded with differing positions as to the validity of these decisions. I will now add to that abundance by presenting my position on the religious freedom case.[1]

To set the stage for the context for the Supreme court decision on religious freedom, I first remind the reader of the wording of the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution (highlighting certain words here and later that will be relevant to my reflections).

Congress shall make no law restricting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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These “Truths” I Now Embrace About What It Means to Follow Jesus

What does it mean to follow Jesus? Highly regarded representatives from twelve Christian traditions told us how those within their traditions answer that all-important question in the twelve-month conversation that I recently hosted on this website (which you can access at the bottom of this Home Page).

But what did I learn from this conversation? I now present a compendium of “truths” that I now embrace as a result of this ecumenical conversation; “truths” that I believe should guide me in my day-to-day decisions as I aspire to be a faithful follower of Jesus

#1: I should avail myself of the resources for spiritual growth (i.e., rituals for worship and practice of the sacraments) provided in the Christian tradition in which I worship at the same time that I take concrete actions in response to the commandments of Jesus, especially his commandment, recorded in Matthew 25, that I minister to the needs of the poor, persecuted, and marginalized in our society. It is both/and, not either/or.
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