Truth and grace
Just before Christmas last year, writing that shared my journey away from the Radical Left got characterized by the news publication that had gratefully and excitedly published it as "truth that lacks grace." I was told I would be "limited" in what I can say until there are more "grace" stories, which apparently are restaurant reviews, sports stories and business features.
Yeah, no.
In the first place, reviews and features are fine, but they're not "grace." At all. It's a bit shocking that a Christian would say that to me. Grace is getting what you don't deserve and not getting what you do deserve. Not having to earn God's love. Not having to perform your way through life in order to be redeemed. It's a pretty deep repudiation of the cross to equate business and sports with grace.
The second place, truth and grace are not different things. Especially in today's morally relative, self-idolatrous, feelings-worshipping culture, truth IS grace. It is not grace to pat people on the back as they march off a cliff. It is not truth to accept and affirm all viewpoints. It is not truth to pat people on the back as they march off a cliff. It is not grace to accept and affirm all viewpoints.
There's a common analogy that grace and truth are each on one side of a scale and there needs to be enough (or the absence of enough) of each to balance the scale. A better analogy is that truth and grace are an ocean: truth may be a crashing wave - or grace may be. Ever thought about how hard it is to receive something you know you didn't earn without feeling the need to repay or somehow make up for it? Grace may be a calm spot to float - or truth may be. Ever thought about how relieving it actually is when you know you did something wrong and a friend doesn't try to make you feel better but simply agrees that indeed that thing was wrong?
That said, I'm going to start this year but starting a series demonstrating what I mean by "truth and grace are not different," where I talk about what I, no longer Woke, still agree with The Left on as I learn more about the other viewpoints that The Radical Left condemns.