By Chris Surber
Columnist

I once read in a commentary on modern times that the word “honesty” is now preceded by the words “old fashioned.” The very truthfulness of truth is now under suspicion. I’m not suggesting that people prefer lies. I’m asserting something far deeper and far more sinister.

Rather than dismissing what is known to be true, our culture says that nothing can be known to be objectively true. This is the public philosophy that what may be true for you is not necessarily true for me and vice versa.

We have become the arbiters of our own truth. We are the kings of worlds that only exist in our minds. We have rejected the truthfulness of truth, absolute systems of truth, and certainly the notion of a God of absolute authority and truth in any knowable way.

Consequently, our culture is saturated with moral and ethical relativism. In our day it isn’t even commonly accepted that anything is necessarily wrong or right. Human actions are seen as right or wrong purely based upon a given situation.

For example, none of us want our possessions stolen, but if we hear of someone stealing because they are poor then we might say, “You can’t judge them until you have walked a mile in their shoes.”

It is either right or it is wrong to steal, regardless of what shoes you are wearing, especially if they are stolen shoes.

More profoundly, last week Christians and non-Christians alike enjoyed the hunting of Easter eggs, the delight of milk chocolate bunnies and time with family. These are all good things. However, the heartbeat of Easter echoes from an empty tomb in Jerusalem. Last week, Christians celebrated the resurrection of Jesus. Everybody else just sort of played along for the sake of Easter bunnies.

At the center of the Easter celebration is the Christian assertion that a man who was sent from God not only died for the sins of the world but even more ostentatiously, that three days later He rose from the dead and lives eternally.

Further, we make the brazen claim that this man Jesus not only spoke the truth of God but that He is the truth of God. These claims are outrageous, scandalous and they are either categorically true or untrue.

It cannot be true for me that Jesus vacated a tomb of His own volition after being dead for three days but not true for you. He either did or did not. On the one hand, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” (1 Corinthians 15:14 NIV) On the other hand, if Christ is raised from the dead as the Scriptures, the growth of the early Church, the faith of millions, and other experiments of truth attest, then that fact of history has radical implications for all of humanity, regardless of our opinions of the truthfulness of truth.