Don’t Lie to Them

“Don’t you dare lie to me!”

Yeah, you’ve heard that before. It’s pretty much what’s behind the oath Americans must give before testifying in court, to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” This whole ritual assumes that there is such a thing as objective reality. The West makes a god of this imaginary reality, to the point Jehovah is held accountable to it. Thus, we have Christian theologians saying, “God cannot…” They go so far as to accuse God of ginning up Western Civilization, as if He somehow didn’t quite get it right with ancient Hebrew mysticism. Western culture is a work of Satan.

This whole business of “telling the truth” is the folly and arrogance of human reason to construct a pagan deity of legalism, something we got from Judaism. It was the result of Hebrew rabbis absorbing Hellenism in place of their ancient Hebrew mysticism. The rabbis created a false god of law bound under reason, and this has been the false god of Western culture, including Western Christianity, ever since that time. Legalism is just another hat worn by the same deified objective reality.

Every now and then, it seems I have to remind folks that we who follow Christ by the heart are not bound under false Western morals. The latter is pagan; it is not from our God but some other. Our God’s Creation operates by His moral character, and the fundamental nature of reality is feudalism. We have no duty to some imaginary objective reality; our duty is to Christ, a real and living person.

He is the one who decides what you owe to any human (Romans 13:7-10), and He tells you through your heart. He speaks through convictions that arise from His implanted moral character. His character in us is first sacrificial (Galatians 2:20; 1 Corinthians 13). This is the point behind my three pillars of mysticism: (1) committed to His truth first and foremost, (2) operating by His compassion and (3) disentangled from this world and its concerns.

Naturally we realize that humanity in any given context is divided between those heart-led versus everyone else. Under the Covenant of Christ, we do not bear the same feudal obligations to both (Matthew 7:6).

In a secular court of law, I cannot possibly tell “the whole truth.” The court is founded on a falsehood, a deeply perverted epistemology. All I can do is tell so much of my personal narrative as Christ in my heart tells me is appropriate. I don’t believe in objective facts in the first place, but even if they existed, fallen mankind could not grasp them fully. In the legalism of the judicial system, it’s the “so help me God” part that gets me off the hook for not surrendering to its false demand.

But you would expect me to try mightily to share everything in my experience that is pertinent to the court’s interest. Some would accuse me of possibly lying if I didn’t approach this with the same reverence for the deified “objective reality” as they possess, but I’m not accountable to such folk for my conscience, because I do not serve that god.

The biblical definition of honesty is observing the appropriate feudal obligations. Thus, I do not deprive someone of what is their due. There is no objective truth to offer. This isn’t permission to “lie” because the Bible doesn’t use that word the same way Western folks do. We have a command to keep in mind that God is our Lord, and He’s not what Westerners say He is.

Sometimes we can tell them that, but more often we just have to play along because the moment of revelation hasn’t come. The only truth in this world is God’s revelation and glory; it’s His divine moral character.

Western society as a whole is one big lie.