An individual can be sincerely right or sincerely wrong. Sincerity is no marker for the absolute-ness of a principle or a concept or even a “truth.” We believers can stand toe to toe to debate “truth” from our perspective until the cows come home, but too often our truths are merely based on the experiential and emotional rather than the absolutes of God’s word. To debate the absolute of God’s word is to somehow, as I see it, throw doubt on His veracity and to sift who He is through a 21st century sensibility as though His omniscience has been diluted by the swift passing of time.

We now live in a time where some individuals who name themselves Christian, private or public sector, have taken up their own mantle deemed truth and either refuse to accept any other discourse or dialogue or label any opposition as Haters who bring their Haterade to a members only Hatefest.

The gospel of John reminds us that we are sanctified by God’s truth and His word is truth. I do not believe we are called to prove the rightness of our stance (or His righteousness) by wrapping and re-wrapping our sincerity in pious rhetoric that magnifies our rightness and minimizes those who do not stand in agreement. We are called to prove what is that good and perfect and acceptable will of God as salt and light. How can the world savor our salt and be drawn to our light if we spend most of our time tilting at each other’s windmills?

At the end of the movie, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” (yep, a favorite), the genteel and erudite Marcus Brody unsteadily rides his fast paced steed into the horizon as he declares to the others, “Follow me; I know the way,” to which Dr. Henry Jones responds, “Got lost in his own museum, huh?”

Let us not be the individual declaring we know the way while we, too many times have been lost in our own museums.