A fatal flaw of this fallen world is its incessant failure to find truth between opposite extremes, where truth’s precious treasure always lies buried. In fact, today’s world denies the existence of absolute truth due to its extreme reaction to militant extremists. For instance, when Muslim extremists profess to possess objective truth worth killing for, the world reacts by insisting that all truth is subjective and not even worth quibbling over.

Between the Islamist and relativist is the Christian—the professor and possessor of absolute truth. Though the absolute truth of the Christian faith is definitely worth dying for, the Christian need never shed blood in its defense, since it is both eternal and indestructible. Whereas the fictitious gods of false religions need their followers to fight in their defense, being obviously incapable of fighting for their nonexistent selves, the one and only true God needs no one to fight His battles, being more than capable of fending for Himself.

Now, none of the above should be misinterpreted as ascribing pacifism to the adherents of the Christian faith. The Christian understands that there are things in life worth fighting for. Still, genuine faith can never be coerced or converted to at the point of a sword. This is why Jesus, unlike the Prophet Mohammed, taught that His followers would never take up the sword in this world to advance His otherworldly kingdom (John 18:36).

We should never permit someone’s abuse of the truth to cause us to refuse the truth. To do so is to find ourselves at the opposite extreme of the spectrum, where truth is no less elusive than it is at the opposite pole. To attempt to protect ourselves from militant abusers of the truth by insisting that there is no truth bigger than our individual selves is as much a crime against humanity as militant Islam. In fact, it may be a greater crime, since it imperils the immortal soul to protect our temporal selves.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” (Jim Elliot, a Christian missionary to Ecuador who, along with four others, was killed while attempting to evangelize the Waodani people)