The Mr. Roger's Approach to Truth...

I grew up watching Mr. Rogers when I was a kid. To be completely honest, it served as a great segue into nap time for me. Between the mellow sound of his voice, and the slow pace of the show, I was primed and ready for my midday power nap by the time Mr. Rogers put his walking shoes back on. My absolute favorite part of the show was when the little trolley took a trip to the land of make believe.

Ah, the land of make believe where anything is possible, even the concepts of feline royalty and a trolley with a "chip of the old block" personality. I do believe there's a definite place for fiction or "make believe" in our world. A place where we can take the limits off of our imagination and dream, regardless of what kind of reality it may be based in. 

As wonderful as our imagination can be, the land of "make believe" is no place for us to develop what we believe to be true about life, God and ultimately about truth itself. The reason I call this Mr. Rogers theology is because it would appear as though everyone gets to "make up" their own version of truth as they go along. The technical name for it is "moral relativism". 

Take a hot button issue like abortion. The cold, hard fact is that women who engage in sexual activity would like to reserve the right to "terminate" the consequences of their actions. In my mind it's sort of like a criminal who has every measure of evidence stacked against them in the court of law asking for a "do over" on the basis that they never truly realized the consequences of their actions until they committed the crime. 

Someone who shoots someone else with a gun would have to be pretty disconnected from reality in failing to understand that the person on the receiving end of the bullet(s) will most likely lose their life in the process. Just the same, as popular as the subject of sex is in America today and the wide-spread availability of sex education and birth control, a woman would have to be just as disconnected from reality to not really know until she's conceived, that parenthood is simply the by-product of a sexual relationship, no matter how you slice it.

Do I have pity or feel sorry for both the unwed mother and the circumstances that child may have to grow up in? Absolutely! It would've been far greater for that young, unwed mother to experience the responsibilities and joys of parenthood under any host of other circumstances. But the flesh ruled out. Decisions were made, and when two people come together, babies are born. It's been happening since the dawn of time. 

However, the thought that anyone could ever conceive the idea that we can simply "turn back the wheels of time" and erase this child (I mean mistake) by ending his or her life and that's OK, is simply NOT TRUE! In fact, once the abortion is completed, you've simply opened up a Pandora's box of emotional issues in that young ladies life that will pale severely in comparison to what she experienced physically.

The truth is, there's a book out there called the Bible. It's been a New York Times best seller since before there ever was a New York Times. (Or a New York for that matter.) It's packed with truth and wisdom for us to carry out our lives on the authority of One far greater than our own imagination or relying on the land of "make believe". (Future blog on the relationship between Creator and Created coming soon.) 

We'd have to be completely blind to not see how when our country based her beliefs on God's Word, there was a sense of unity and purpose in our country and a genuine respect for others. Now that we all get to go to the land of make believe to find out what truth is for us, it's a miracle if any two people can agree on anything anymore. Truth is not hard to find folks, but it can be hard to swallow.