The Death of Truth
In episode nine, Senator Mon Mothma offers one of the most powerful speeches in modern television. She ends her oratory bombshell by calling Emperor Palpatine a monster in front of the entire Galactic Senate. While that accusation is intended as a wake-up call to the people of the Star Wars universe, what led up to it serves as an indictment of modern culture. She condemns Imperial propaganda that denied the massacre of the people of planet Ghorman. Mothma believes the greatest danger is the loss of “objective reality” and proclaims, “The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil.”
Emperor Palpatine is to the Star Wars universe what many evil tyrants are to our world: Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and so on. Their governments constantly spread propaganda and lies, denying the massacres, famines, and other atrocities that they committed against their own people and others. Evil thrives on lies. This is what led Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, survivor of the Soviet Gulag, to pen his famous essay, “Live Not By Lies.” He exhorted his readers never to participate in or utter lies. The primary way for ordinary people to defeat evil is to speak the truth and to resist falsehoods, whether they are individual statements or entire ideologies.
Truth & Consequences
We may wonder how this is applicable to us, living safely and comfortably in the West. Isn’t such a concern for lies and propaganda only for people living under tyrannical regimes? The 2016 Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year was post-truth, the circumstances in which people are swayed more by personal emotion and belief than truth and facts. Oprah Winfrey declared in her 2018 Golden Globes acceptance speech that “speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have.” She equates our stories and experiences with truth—not the truth, but your personal truth. Katherine Maher, current CEO of National Public Radio, stated in a 2021 TED Talk that, “our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done.” We may not live under a totalitarian regime that keeps us oppressed by lies, but we do live in a culture that is dismissive of objective truth. Both are dangerous and can have serious consequences.
We may still ask the questions, What is truth? and Why does truth matter? For some people, such as Katherine Maher, truth is that pesky thing that keeps people from “getting things done.” Truth may be whatever makes you happy, whatever advances a specific agenda, or whatever people let you get away with saying. But some quick reflection will show us the problems with such views of truth. What if the “things” people want to “get done” are evil? What if something that makes one person happy harms them or someone else? Truth is best defined as a statement that corresponds to reality. The statement “water is wet” is true simply because water is wet. “Fire is hot” is true because fire is hot. This reflects what Mon Mothma meant by “objective reality.” Reality exists and statements corresponding to reality are true no matter what we think or believe. The Ghorman massacre occurred, even though the Empire denied it. It would still be a fact even if the Rebels lost and the Empire completely erased the event from history. Similarly, historical atrocities like the Holocaust are objective facts of history, even though some people deny them.
Now that we know what truth is, why does it matter? Well, do you want the true answer or the false answer? The easiest way to show the importance of truth is in extreme cases. If a neighbor bangs on your door in the middle of the night telling you that your house is on fire or if a doctor gives you a bad diagnosis, you don’t respond, “That’s just your truth.” You run out of the house. You seek treatment. Or you ignore the warnings and suffer the consequences. Because in the end, reality wins.
Walking in the Truth
Most importantly, we care about truth because God cares about truth. Jesus said, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37). He prayed to the Father on behalf of his followers to “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). He promised his followers that those who abide in his word “will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). Jesus not only had the truth, however; he claimed to be Truth (John 14:6). What does this mean? As God, Jesus is the ultimate reality. Since truth is a reflection of reality, then Jesus embodies Truth itself. Thus, to follow Jesus is to be fully committed to the Truth—to seek it, to love it, and to live it.
Mon Mothma declares that when truth is lost, people become “vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.” Although she was talking to the Galactic Senate, she may as well have been speaking directly to us. Just think of all the voices and messages vying for our attention, from legacy media to social media, from celebrities to politicians to influencers. They may not look like monsters, but anyone who lives by lies is not of Christ. On the contrary, followers of Christ will live by the Truth. It is not always easy, and living in the truth may cost us relationships, opportunities, or even our lives. Yet, Jesus calls us blessed when we suffer and are persecuted for his sake. He tells us, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:10–12). Let us resolve to live not by lies but to always walk in the Truth.