Truth Matters, Stand Up for Truth

Those of us who live in Asia have for centuries lived with the reality of cultural plurality in general and religious plurality in particular. Yes, we have lived with plurality, but not pluralism. Pluralism has never been an option. Whether you are a Confucianist, or Taoist, Buddhist, Muslim or Hindu, you have an unwavering conviction that what you believe and live by is truth leading to authentic humanity or eternal salvation, and that all other paths would lead at best to an unfulfilled life and at worst to perversion and suffering. Truth matters, for it has life consequences. While respecting others, you nevertheless see it as your responsibility to point them to the right path.
The pluralism in vogue today is entirely different. It is an ideology that proclaims that truth is a cultural construction valid only for the culture that constructs it. It has therefore no bearing on another culture or system of meaning. There is no truth that can claim to be truth for all. All truths are relative to one another. The pluralist pushes the point further from cultures to individuals. The individual is now presumed to be the ultimate ground of reality, the foundation on which meaning and values are created. The postmodern pluralist believes that each and every individual creates her own logic and makes her own rules in constructing her own world of reality and value. The individual is “autonomous” in the sense that she is the law to herself. As each individual constructs her own world, there can be, therefore, as many worlds as there are individuals, and each is merely a web of beliefs true only to the individual who weaves it. As these individually constructed worlds are each unique to themselves, they are therefore incommensurable to one another. So, despite all the rhetoric about dialogue, pluralism has rendered all dialogues to be unnecessary and futile.
For more information go to Truth Matters, Stand Up for Truth on the Lausanne Movement website.
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