One of the most famous questions in the history of the world was uttered as Jesus Christ stood on the verge of crucifixion before Pontius Pilate and the Roman governor asked Him, “What is truth?”
Pilate wasn’t really looking for an answer then and, come to think of it, neither are most people today. It has become fashionable to elevate opinion to the level of truth by encouraging people to “live your truth,” and expect applause for “living my truth.”
When did truth become so subjective?
That’s what the makers of Nothing But the Truth decry in an 87-minute documentary that makes no bones about the absoluteness of truth and the flimsiness of relativism and universalism. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, one of several religious and political leaders featured in the film, makes a point about the folly of truth being subjective.
“I can say I don’t believe in gravity but if I jump off a building, gravity is going to make a believer out of me,” said Huckabee, who’s also a former pastor. “Believing, thinking and feeling do not substitute for reality. Biblical truth in the purest sense is not just that I believe it to be true. It’s true because it is definably true, it is objectively true, it is demonstrably true, and that’s the only kind of truth that really matters. And biblical truth is that kind of truth.”
The documentary suffers for its spending so much energy preaching to the choir, with one speaker echoing what the one before said. Those with an affinity for Christian apologetics won’t get a lot of ammunition to win over unbelievers.
The documentary calls for people to stand for truth and engagement in government regardless of party, though the documentary does not address that its most prominent voices have publicly and energetically wed their support to politicians a great many find at odds with basic truthfulness. There are, however, several snippets of the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and leader of the denomination’s conservative movement in the late 1970s.
“When it comes to the political world, I’ve heard Dr. Rogers say so many times: ‘Nobody owns us. No party owns us. We’re not Republican. We’re not Democrat. We’re not Independent. We belong to the Lord Jesus Christ,’ ” said Ken Whitten, senior pastor of the Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa, Fla. “In fact, he would say this, ‘We ought to be close enough to every one of them to tell them to repent.’ “
Would that it were so.
The documentary merits the Dove-approved Seal for All Ages based on its unflinching declaration that Jesus is the Truth, the Way and the Life, as John 14:6 makes clear.
The Dove Take
It preaches to the choir, hitting all the notes a conservative Christian wants to hear, making less of a moving target out of truth.
