It has been said that “the first casualty when war comes is the truth.” This war has burst into the collective consciousness of the west like an artillery shell bursting in a darkened sky. We have been left reeling with shock as images flood our screens that we have not seen in generations. It’s true that wars have never ended, however this is a western, European war and as we look at it we are forced to confront certain realities that western intellectuals had thought we had grown out of. We have grown complacent in our postmodern, relativistic ivory towers. Secure in the peace and prosperity of the post WWII era we indulged the idea that we are our own gods, that we each have our own truth, that right and wrong were relative terms, we have looked down our noses at the generations before us who superstitiously believed in such concepts as good and evil and told ourselves that the truth was whatever we wanted it to be.
The rockets raining down are exploding our complacency and reducing our postmodern worldview to rubble as effectively as the cities of Ukraine. We find that we are once again confronted with the reality of evil on our doorstep. We marvel at the courage of President Zelensky, and find we need to reach back into the lexicon of our ancestors to dust off terms that not so long ago we thought old fashioned, quaint and slightly embarrassing like nobility, honour and duty to describe the David and Goliath struggle now playing out. As we do so something is stirring and awakening in us as we realise that we never fully believed that everything is relative, we have always known that some things are wrong, that good exists and that evil is out there crouching at the door and it’s desire is for us.
In the end we will build our lives and our societies on the foundation of either truth or power. The idea that there is no such thing as truth is like a cluster bomb dropped into our minds because once truth dies, morality, human dignity, the intrinsic value of man and freedom all follow in the power of the secondary explosions that follow. If we abandon truth then all we have is power to rule our lives, which has been the natural tendency of humanity for much of history. If “might is right” then the powerful will impose their will on the weak. Ukraine and truth will be crushed beneath the tanks of the Russian invasion. Russia repeats that it is just acting in it’s own national self interest and who can say that they are wrong? Without truth the world descends into chaos of the powerful taking what they want from the weak. The narrative is whatever we want it to be.
So will power finally kill the truth? Fortunately truth has the habit of rising from the grave. We only have to look back at Golgotha to remember another day when the power of an empire tried to crucify the truth. On that day too the skies were darkened and the ground shook, it seemed that Jesus Christ died however three days later Jesus rose again. This glorious fact stands as our anchor in history for Jesus said “I am the way, the TRUTH and the life”. The resurrection of Jesus, and the life he lived, the word he preached gives us the riposte to unfettered power. When Jesus rose from the dead he not only overcame every earthly and demonic power but he demonstrated that he is the truth and he is the son of God. We can trust him and his words recorded in the scriptures. This is the only foundation on which we can hope to build free and just societies by placing our faith in the God of the Bible and living according to his word.
In the same way that most of the world has recognised that what Putin is doing wrong and that we need to resist his naked ambition and aggression we need to recognise that there are boundaries of good and evil in all of our lives. We don’t get to determine subjectively where the boundaries lie for each of us will answer to the ultimate judge of all in the courts of Heaven.
As we re-awaken to the reality of evil in the world we are also forced to confront our own need for forgiveness and redemption. Russia may be wrong in this war but that does not mean that Ukraine, or the west are sinless. Just because we can clearly see other’s faults does not remove our own personal guilt. Each of us individually need grace and forgiveness as at some stage we have all acted in our own interest to the detriment of the others around us, we have arrogantly asserted our rights without regard to others. We violate the boundaries of people around us because we have all sinned and fallen short of the mercies of God and are in need of God’s forgiveness and salvation.
It’s time to recognise that a world ruled by unrestrained power without regard to truth is not one we want thus we need to humble ourselves and surrender to the one Kingdom which is perfectly just and holy, The Kingdom of God. When the smoke clears we will once again see that in contradiction to those who told us that truth is dead, it’s demise has been greatly exaggerated.
