Craig Barnes asks 'What is Truth?' By Jeremy Grant The Layman Online Monday, June 21, 1999 FORT WORTH – "Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." Jesus before Pilate, John 18:37 "It is we who belong to the truth. Even if we don't get it or don't like it, we still belong to the truth." With these words, the Rev. Craig Barnes, pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., created a stir among those gathered for Monday morning worship at the Fort Worth General Assembly. Preaching to a packed theatre of General Assembly commissioners, staff, and other worshipers, Barnes's sermon raised up perhaps one of the most crucial questions for this assembly: "What is Truth?" Barnes pointed out that no one of us can claim to "possess" truth. Rather, he said, we, ourselves, are possessed by truth and the One who is truth. Barnes suggested that the work of the church is not that of making the truth relevant to us, but us relevant to the truth. Recalling a parent-teacher conference he and his wife attended for their daughter, Barnes quoted her teacher's affirmation, "Here there are no bad ideas." "At first that went down quite easily," said Barnes. But then he remembered that there have been many bad ideas throughout history. "The trick is to figure out what the good-ideas are from the bad ideas. That's your job here. … We dare not take the local option approach to figuring out truth." "Instead," he stated, "we come together at the assembly and take a long hard look at the truth." After great questions are asked, Craig Barnes concluded, comes a silence. The church must speak into that silence and say, "Jesus Christ is with us and we belong to Him." The worshipers could not contain a burst of spontaneous applause in affirmation of Barnes' words. Another highlight of Monday's service of worship was the choir from the Seminario Theologico Presbyteriana de Mexico. Their anthem "The Purposes of Our God," sung in Spanish, washed upon the worshipers like waves proclaiming the glory of God. Worshipful "amens" were heard around the theatre.
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