The Truth That Really Matters

Another week, another scandal, another cascade of lies from the current administration, for whom the truth doesn’t always seem to matter. The revelation that United States administrators, including the Secretary of Defense, were sharing war plans  through an unsecured app, and invited a journalist to join in resulted in more spin, and spin, and spin. This includes the president’s press secretary, a professed Christian who stands behind a briefing room dais, where a giant golden cross around her neck, and lies.

Bearing false witness is okay, I guess, when in service to power.

I’d like to think that telling the truth still matters, but some days I wonder.

A few weeks ago, I preached at my home church (North Valley Friends) about the early Quaker witness of truth-telling in an age of disinformation. My central claim was that early Quakers provide us with a clear roadmap for how to fight what seems to be a lack of truth in the world.

To be honest, I don’t know if there was a lot of disinformation swirling in George Fox’s time, but I’m guessing the English government was working hard to suppress any messages that undermined their power, as our government is today. At the time, George Fox’s ministry flourished when war, cultural and social upheaval, and a state-sanctioned church demanded people bend their knee to a monarchy who used religion to coalesce money and power.

Sound familiar?

George Fox preached a different kind of relationship with Jesus, one not reliant on hierarchy and power. In asserting that we could have an authentic connection to Jesus because he existed inside and for everyone, George Fox undermined those who said they alone could serve as mediator for the divine, a definite threat to the Church of England’s entire house of cards.

Publishers of Truth

For this threat, George Fox was imprisoned multiple times, an attempt to silence him from saying that the hierarchical church itself was irrelevant. He railed against money-grubbing priests and the immorality of leaders, and refused to take oaths or arms. He refused to be silenced, and even when he was thrown in prison, he and other early Quakers found ways to spread their message. Early Quakers called themselves “Publishers of the Truth,” which meant–in one sense–someone who simply spoke the truth to an audience.

To spread their ideas, too, Quakers knew they could use the tools of publication to get the word out about their faith, and they published dozens of pamphlets and books each year, starting in 1653. They were driven by a conviction that they had an important message to share with the world, and published truth no matter the consequences, their persistent fidelity to truth a virtue we should emulate in our own place and time.

George Fox would be as transgressive now as then, and remains an inspiration for those of us who are overwhelmed with the lies now. Early Quakers told the truth, with courage and conviction, even when doing so might come at personal cost. They fought against powers who want to hide the truth, because doing so sustains their power. They used the tools available to them to publish the truth that there is one, Christ Jesus, who can speak to our condition.

Bearing Witness to Truth Now

And so I’ve wondered, how can people of faith be uniquely positioned now to publish truth in our sometimes very bleak post-truth world? Honestly, I see this happening already, folks in our church and community and world being valiant for the truth.

• I see it in the work of people advocating for immigrants. Immigrants in my home town, and in our national discourse,  have been maligned by disinformation campaigns, presented as a threat, unworthy of the security they are seeking. Support for them tells the truth: that there is that of Christ in immigrants, too, and they deserve basic human rights.
• I see it in the work of people caring for those who are houseless, who have been maligned by disinformation campaigns and unfairly targeted  a threat to children, to a community’s stability. Support for those folks tells the truth: that there is that of Christ in the houseless, and they deserve dignity.
• I see it in the work to care for those in Gaza. Disinformation campaigns insist that Palestinians don’t have any right to their own land, and worse, that Palestinians deserve the thousands and thousands of civilian deaths they’ve faced this year. Indeed, disinformation insists that the Palestinians are so odious, their land should given to the wealthy for a vacation resort. Support for those folks tells the truth: that there is that of Christ in Gaza, and they deserve a safe homeland to live and raise their children.

During his numerous imprisonments, George Fox continued his ministry, writing letters and exhorting others to keep faith. In one letter, George Fox wrote:

Go through the work, and be valiant for the truth upon earth; tread and trample down all that is contrary. You have the power, do not abuse it. you have the strength, presence, and wisdom of the Lord. Eye it, that with it you may all be ordered to the glory of the Lord God.

Sing and rejoice, ye children of the day and of the light; for the Lord is at work in this thick night of darkness that may be felt. And truth doth flourish as the rose, and the lilies do grow among the thorns, and the plants atop of the hills. And upon them the lambs do skip and play. And never heed the tempests nor the storms, floods nor rains, for the seed Christ is over all, and doth reign. And so be of good faith and valiant for the truth; for the truth can live in the jails. And fear not the loss of fleece, for it will grow again; and follow the lamb, if it be under the beast’s horns, or under the beast’s heels; for the lamb shall have the victory over them all .

(George Fox, November 1663)

When I read George Fox’s exhortation here, I am astounded by its universality, how it speaks to our condition, nearly 400 years later, another reminder that history–and humanity–tends to repeat itself, and that our time is not so unusual after all. George Fox is himself echoing the words of the prophet Jeremiah, who faced oppression and imprisonment as he railed against power, its nation beset by idolatry and moral turpitude: “They bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:3).

Telling the truth in a world beset by darkness and disinformation, by rancor and division and chaos, is an occasion for hope, and for courage, and maybe–some day—for joy, for the lamb will have victory over all.

What a potent reminder, today and every day, of the truth that really matters.