In 1917, frustrated by the misinformation coming from both sides in the Great War, Senator Hiram Johnson wrote, “The first casualty when war comes is truth.”
His worst problem wasn’t the enemy propaganda which everyone expected to be distorted, but the “friendly” deceptions of his own war department. Their “embellished” truth was meant to keep up morale in the trenches and at home, but the skewed information made it impossible to effectively plan offensive actions and allocate troops.
By the end of the Second World War, both German and British broadcasts were so littered with doublespeak that nobody ever retreated; they “strategically returned to previously prepared positions.”
During the Cold War, reporting on a car race in which both they and the Americans had participated, the aptly named Soviet paper Pravda (“truth”) reported that the Russian car had triumphed in second place while the disgraced Americans had finished second to last, omitting to mention that only two cars had raced.
In times of crisis, the higher the stakes, the greater our propensity to “adjust” the way we see events, report them to others and record them for history. In the Church’s great universal struggle for the eternal souls of men and women, the stakes are so high that we feel not only allowed, but often even obligated to preserve our testimony even at the expense of the truth.
When church splits occur, for instance, we can never quite publicly admit what happened. Denominational reports and local church histories creatively describe divisions as “non-strategic church hive-offs,” “unintentional church plants” and the ultimate doublespeak prizewinner, “unplanned ministry extensions into neighbouring communities.” I have yet to see anyone bluntly say, “We had a church division” and then explain what or even worse, who caused it.
But why tell the ugly truth and make everyone feel bad? Why not gloss things over and move on to future ministry with every reputation intact?
We speak the truth because the end does not justify the means—no matter how glorious the end.
We speak the truth because coverups consume energy and resources and blur our focus. Children know a little untruth told to cover a sin can bloom into a huge mess by the time the truth eventually outs. If you think a story in the local paper about a sexually abusive pastor is hard for a church’s reputation, wait until the national media report about a church board and denominational leadership covering up a pastor’s abusive ways for 20 years.
We speak the truth because victims can’t be properly helped until we call a spade a spade. For decades UN member nations have tiptoed around, avoiding the term “genocide” to not offend anyone, but until there is the political will to clearly use the term, countless past victims are not being appropriately recognized or helped and thousands of others are at risk.
Until the Church openly condemns spousal abuse, involves the police and sends offenders to trial and to jail, countless women and children will suffer in silence, paying the price of our churches’ reputations with their broken bones and shattered lives.
Until the abusive staff in Christian residential schools, camps, orphanages and churches are identified and face criminal prosecution, the undefended victims will carry alone the weight of their abusers’ crimes. How dare we let molested children pay the price for preserving our ministries’ reputations.
Until abusive leaders and boards in the Christian community are publicly identified, denounced and made to face the full legal ramifications of their actions, the Church remains a haven for the domineering rather than the refuge for the oppressed Christ wants it to be.
If the history of protecting our testimony at any cost has taught us anything, it is surely that if in times of crisis truth is the first casualty, it is seldom the last.
