Truth is Truth whether from the Lips of . . .

I look to C.S. Lewis as one of my model teachers. The portrayal of Lewis' tutorial with his students in the film, Shadowlands, is one of the finest displays of formation-in-process that I can point to in contemporary culture. He challenges his students to explore the significance of a rose as a metaphor for desire. Through a series of questions, he guides his students to ponder a persistent question: "What is desire's one essential quality?" When one of his pupils shrugs-off the answer proposed, Lewis exhorts him into a deeper debate. The student though, at this early point in their relationship, is reticent to take up the gauntlet.

Now, I don't know if Anthony Hopkins' Lewis is an accurate portrayal, but it is an authentically inspiring one to me, and I think it is quite consistent with the Lewis we come to know in his books, especially Mere Christianity and his essays contained in God in the Dock. Lewis' thinking (and his teaching, I would imagine) was significantly formed by the works of the Scottish pastor and novelist George MacDonald. One of the books by Lewis I ever purchased after reading The Screwtape Letters in my high school years was a little paperback entitled, George MacDonald: Anthology. In the preface to this collection, Lewis wrote: "In making these extracts, I have been concerned with MacDonald not as a writer but as a Christian teacher" (14).

Though he had never met MacDonald, Lewis recounts how his works and life, as told by MacDonald's son in the biography he wrote of his father, substantially shaped his approach to writing and to living. One of the most telling quotes that Lewis includes among the 365 extracts (most coming from MacDonald's sermons) composing this little volume is this: "Truth is truth, whether from the lips of Jesus or Balaam" (27). From the very first time I read that line nearly 35 years ago it was indelibly impressed upon my thinking. MacDonald's words have continued challenged me to listen carefully to many speakers, to read thoughtfully many authors, and to watch observantly many actors.

The search for truth -- true truth, as Francis Schaeffer has called it -- will take us in a variety of directions. I was reminded of this just last evening. As on nearly every Wednesday evening, I was engaged in a discussion of the Scriptures with some of my fellow colleagues here at Handong. Our focus was the first chapter of James, and someone pointed out how this passage emphasizes the need to look into the Scriptures as a mirror that can reveal to us our true selves. This comment led another participant in the study to mention a book entitled The Man in the Mirror. When I heard that phrase, my thoughts turned to a pop song with the same title from the 80's by Michael Jackson.

And being the sort of "quick to speak" guy that I am, I told the group that Jackson had written a song about the "man in the mirror." The mention of the "king of pop's" name must have struck a dissonant chord though, because another of my colleagues promptly declared, "But Michael Jackson got it wrong!" I replied, "Did he? Didn't he just express what Gandhi had said -- "Become the change you wish to make in the world"? Well, my mention of Michael Jackson and Gandhi in the same sentence seemed to be quite enough to alert the group's leader that we (read "I") had now gone way too far afield in our discussion. It was a Bible study for heaven's sake!

But hold on! Truth is truth, right? Whether spoken from the lips of Jesus or Balaam, right? Whether spoken from the lips of Gandhi or sung by Michael Jackson? -- Well you tell me. Did Jackson get it right or not? Here's what he sings:

"As I, Turn Up The Collar On My
Favorite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind
I See The Kids In The Street,
With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind?
Pretending Not To See Their Needs
"A Summer's Disregard,
A Broken Bottle Top
And A One Man's Soul
They Follow Each Other On
The Wind Ya' Know
'Cause They Got Nowhere To Go
That's Why I Want You To Know

"I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself,
And Then Make A Change.

"I've Been A Victim Of A Selfish Kind Of Love
It's Time That I Realize
That There Are Some With No Home,
Not A Nickel To Loan
Could It Be Really Me,
Pretending That They're Not Alone?
"A Willow Deeply Scarred,
Somebody's Broken Heart
And A Washed-Out Dream
They Follow The Pattern Of The Wind, Ya' See
Cause They Got No Place To Be
That's Why I'm Starting With Me

"I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself,
And Then Make A Change."

That's what Michael Jackson sang. Here's what James wrote:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. ~ James 1:22-25

If truth is truth no matter from whose lips the message is spoken or from whose pen the words are written, then it would appear to me that a question of first importance is indeed: Have I made a change in my life?