Jesus and the Tooth Fairy
Q: What do Jesus and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus have in common?
A: Grown-ups told us stories about them when we were children.
And then one day we realized the grown-ups had been lying.
Yes, they did it because they loved us and they wanted us to be happy, but that didn’t change the fact that they were lying.
Some of us were able to separate the stories about Jesus from the stories about the mythical characters, but not all of us. I, myself, continue to believe in Jesus. I choose to believe, “…we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” (1st John 4:14)
But many of my closest friends choose not to believe and I understand that choice. Belief is not rational.
But I’m not writing to you today to tell you about my belief in Jesus. I’m writing to talk to you about the difference between your heart and your mind.
Your belief in your team is not supported by science. It supported by facts you have chosen to believe, but there are just as many facts that would indicate your team doesn’t have a chance. It doesn’t matter whether your team is the Red State team, the Blue State team, the Chicago White Sox or the Green Bay Packers, each of us chooses the facts to which we cling.
But mostly we choose a perspective, a way of looking at things, an angle of view.
Belief is not rational, it is heart-felt.
Belief is not logical, it is intuitive.
But that doesn’t mean it is wrong.
Albert’s intuition told him that the energy contained in an object was equal to its mass times the speed of light, times the speed of light. Son-of-a-bitch! He was right! E=MC2 has been demonstrated to be an incontrovertible truth.
But not all truth is incontrovertible.
Do you believe in democracy and patriotism and the American Dream? So do I, but these beliefs are not supported by science. They are supported by selected facts and a ferociously guarded perspective that has been handed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years.
Democracy and Patriotism and the American Dream are not science, they are a cultural perspective, a way of looking at things, an angle of view that you and I have chosen.
Justice and Mercy are not science, they are two different perspectives.
And they often come into conflict.
Honesty and Loyalty are not science, they are two different perspectives.
And they often come into conflict.
Freedom and Responsibility are not science, they are two different perspectives.
And they often come into conflict.
The voice of Freedom shouts to my mind, “It’s my life, and I can do with it what I choose.”
But the voice of Responsibility whispers to my heart, “I should be careful, not for myself, but for all the people I care about.”
Explosive issues can always be found at the intersection of two perspectives.
Roy H. Williams