Telling the Truth?

If you ask them, they would all say they are telling the truth. There is probably no better time to see so clearly how complicated and relative truth can be than election campaigns. Each side says tells things about the other side which they claim are true, but make the rest of us realize how misleading those charges can be. One candidates claims that the other voted to raise taxes. Turns out the other candidate did raise the rate of taxes but reduce the amount on which the taxes would be applied and so actually reduce the tax bill, but did vote to raise the rate. Another candidate claims that the other candidate drove the state into deep debt. But what really happened was that bond issues for important projects were passed by the voters upon the recommendation of the committee this person was the chairperson. Yes the state did increase the debt of the state, but it was a debt that was accepted by the voters. Or one claims that the other is for big government, high taxes, and spending programs when it has been their own party who has always increased the national debt and who has had spending programs not even on the budget.
The political campaigns are just a small piece of the bigger question that Pilate asked about what is truth. The campaigns show us that by taking just a piece of a story and using it truth can sound so different and so contrary to what we would like to see. But the same story is told by the people in economic positions. What is the financial reality? Bearish or bullish? Each person picks pieces of data and selects some facts. Then they declare their version of the truth.
Educators, military advisers, and all sorts of experts pick out a few of the aspects of their field and declare they are telling us the truth.
We are certainly engaged in that kind of fight within the great Christian community. Different groups of believers pick out different passages of scripture they want to focus on and then call what they have the truth. The struggle between religious also works on the different claims to ultimate truth.
What I find so fascinating about what I understand about the Grace Jesus gave and offered is that you and I do not have to be right. God in Christ has already made forgiveness happen, and we are invited to live in a world where we can care about each other, the planet, and ourselves without having to be "right" and without having to prove the other people wrong. I don't know whether or not this is the truth, but the story that has been a blessing to me says that God has already made forgiven available to everybody.