This is the third way. A belief in objectivity—in Beauty, Truth, and Goodness—requires neither a rejection of the complexities of the world nor a rejection of those who think differently. In fact, it requires more work. It requires a willingness to enter into the mess of a seemingly contradictory reality with a hope and a trust that there is something worth fighting for.
And thus, the sincerity of Wonder Woman and her Lasso of Truth arrive as a brief but necessary respite from the cycle of deception and disillusionment that plagues our cultural landscape. It unearths a newly repressed desire for wholehearted sincerity, even Truth, that we forgot we could believe in.
The critical and financial success of Wonder Woman proves audiences are ready for a strong female superhero. We might also be ready to face the Truth.
I learned about this phrase when my daughter went to the great Hillsdale College in 2010. I’m sure I’d come across it in the past, but its significance as a pointer to the power and glory of our almighty Creator God has been impressed upon me continually in new ways since then.
In case you’re not familiar with it, the concepts, while not the exact phrase, go back to the ancient Greeks. Over time the phrase stuck, and the three always seemed to be mentioned together. The reason is that each depends on the other, and each implies the other. Most importantly, they depend on and assume God, a God of truth, goodness, and beauty, to which the Scriptures everywhere attest.
My teenage music obsessed son shared this song from Queens of the Stone Age with me, and I was haunted by the lyrics. Human beings are really good at rejecting any ultimate meaning in the universe, but spending their life searching for it. Never finding. The lyrics of this song capture that futility, perfectly. The melancholy of the melody also captures that futility, perfectly. See if you agree: (more…)
In case you’ve been in a cave somewhere without this Internet thing, or access to any TV, Radio, the regular or short wave kind, you likely know there is going to be a total solar eclipse tomorrow across much of America. This doesn’t happen very often so it’s kind of a big deal. It’s also awe inspiring for reasons that don’t need explanation, and that makes it a big deal too. I’ve seen several headlines in previous weeks similar to this one in the Washington Post: “The first solar eclipse to cross America in 99 years is coming. To some, it’s an act of God.”
Such a headline is indicative of the naturalism and its assumptions that pervade secular Western culture. Naturalism simply means that whether there is a God or not, the universe was set in motion, and natural laws are what keep it going, no God required. The Deism popular around the decades of America’s Founding was a form of naturalism. God’s a clock maker, he made the clock, and now it runs on its own.
We live in convoluted times, where we’re supposed to believe what is up is down, what is black is white, and where the only thing we can say is wrong are people who say things are wrong. This is especially true when it comes to the issues of sexuality in Western culture. Here we’re supposed to believe that something called “sexual orientation” is hard wired into our DNA and can never change, but that our sex (or gender in a less than helpful modern term) is malleable. Whatever you do, you are encouraged to be “true to yourself,” unless of course that means claiming such assertions are lies. If you do that, the dominant secular liberal culture will declare you a hater and a bigot.
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