Editor’s note: Voices is a weekly commentary by a panel of Maine columnists who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.

A recent edition of the Encyclopedia of American Religions includes descriptions of 2,300 different religious groups currently existing in the United States and it reports that new sects are showing up every week.

With so many voices purporting to represent truth these days, who knows what to believe anymore? Who is qualified to say what is true and what isn’t? And aren’t all religions just different expressions of the same truth anyway?

The story is told of a time during the history of the former Soviet Union when a wave of petty theft was hitting many government-owned plants.

In an attempt to curtail the stealing, guards were placed at factory entrances to watch the laborers as they entered and departed.

On one particular occasion, as the story goes, a guard at Leningrad Timberworks spotted Pyotr Petrovich leaving the yard with a bulky sack in a wheelbarrow. The guard became suspicious. “Petrovich,” he called, “What have you got there?” “Just sawdust and shavings,” Petrovich replied.

“Come on,” the guard said, “I wasn’t born yesterday. Tip it out.” So out it came. But just as he’d claimed, nothing was there except sawdust and shavings. So Petrovich was allowed to put it all back and go home.

The same thing happened every night all week long. The guard was becoming very frustrated. Finally, curiosity and exasperation gained the upper hand. “Petrovich,” he said, “I know you. Tell me what you’re smuggling out of here, and I’ll let you go.”

“Wheelbarrows,” said Petrovich.

You may hardly have noticed, but certain basic principles of truth are being routinely smuggled right out from under the nose of our culture these days. Many folks seem to see only the bulky sacks of civil liberty, diversity, tolerance, pluralism and individual perspective. Only a few are aware that truth itself is increasingly in danger.

Thirty years ago, “tolerance” meant being respectful and accommodating of others with differing views and practices. Today tolerance seems to imply an endorsement of all views, as if every view is equally true. But how can any view be true if no view is false? What meaning is left to concepts like truth and error if everything is ultimately relative?

Indian-born Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias says, “If nothing were false, would it be true to say that everything is false? It quickly becomes evident that nonsense will follow.”

He relates the story of a young student who once stood up during one of his lectures and said, “Everything in life is meaningless.” Zacharias replied quietly, “Really? Does that also include your statement?”

In the 1970s if someone said, “God exists,” someone else typically fired back, “Prove it.” Or, “I disagree. God is dead.” Today all that you’ll probably hear is, “Whatever.” Or, “I’m glad that works for you.” Or, “That may be true for religious types, but it’s not true for agnostics.”

Author Dean C. Halverson points out, however, that even relativistic statements of that sort are asserted as absolute truth, thereby essentially refuting themselves.

My own work in apologetics often calls for participation in forums with those who hold views that differ from my own. So long as there’s no ecumenical agenda, that’s fine. People can be civil without minimizing differences. There need be no nonsense about every view being right.

We can listen and try to understand one another’s views without smuggling truth out of the exchange.

In the months ahead this column will itself hopefully model such an approach. On issues that the Bible specifically addresses, this writer, for one, will attempt to affirm and demonstrate the truthfulness of its revelation. Yet will other voices be heard and considered? Certainly.

The Bible often proves uncomfortably categorical. Twenty-seven centuries ago, the prophet Isaiah thundered: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

In contrast, Uncle Screwtape, senior devil in C.S. Lewis’ classic work, “The Screwtape Letters,” advises his young apprentice devil: “Keep everything hazy … now [in your assigned human’s mind], and you will have all eternity wherein to amuse yourself by producing in him the peculiar kind of clarity which Hell affords.”

When rightly acknowledged, the Bible itself easily exposes hazy religious rhetoric. Which may be why Ugandan Archbishop Janani Luwum once said: “The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it.”

The Rev. Daryl E. Witmer is pastor of the Monson Community Church and founder and director of AIIA Institute, a Christian apologetics organization. The views expressed are solely his own. He may be reached at AIIAInstitute@aol.com.