Truthtelling

As I’ve said before, I have been teaching on Christian ethics Wednesday nights.  One of the more interesting discussions we had was on truthtelling.  Should a Christian always tell the truth?   Should a Christian always be truthful?  Is it black and white?

One thing that I wanted to make sure everyone understood was that truthtelling is more than just voicing something factual.  As Christians, it is our job to discern the truth, even through deception.

For example, what is the truth that consumerism tries to sell us?  If you just buy this product, you will find happiness. You are not whole without this item.  As a Christian, we know that wholeness is only found through Christ.  Living in a consumerist society makes it easy to buy into current trends and become deceived.   Part of truthtelling, as a Christian, is being honest with our culture and ourselves in order to discern the truth.

A few Wednesday night’s ago we used this as a truthtelling scenario:

You live in Germany in the early 1940’s and you are a German.  You are close with your Jewish neighbors and you are keeping them hidden in your home.  Nazi soldiers come to your door and ask you if you are housing any Jews.  What is the right thing to do?  Is it a lie if you tell them you aren’t harboring anyone?

Before you answer this, think about truth on a bigger scale.  Saying that you do not have any Jews in your home when you do is in fact a false statement, but is it a lie?  Isn’t the lie actually that Jews are of no value and are expendable?  Isn’t it the truth that Jews, like all people, have value because they are created by God?  So, if you tell the Nazi soldiers that there are no Jews hiding in your home, which side of truth are you on?

Similarly, if someone who is intent on killing you and your family asks you if your family is home and you tell him no, (when if fact they are hiding upstairs) are you lying?  Maybe lying in any form is wrong…maybe even sinful.  But in these situations, aren’t you forced to choose between two evils…lying being the lesser of the two?

I know these scenarios are hypothetical in nature (though lying about harboring Jews actually happened) yet they force us to consider the bigger picture.  In a time of such extreme injustice and imbalance of power one may be forced to do extreme things for the sake of balance.

In Bonhoeffer's biography, Eric Metaxas enlightens us on Dietrich’s opinion of truthtelling.  Remember, Bonhoeffer was martyred under the orders of Adolf Hitler.  His ethics and theology were placed under extreme pressure.  Bonhoeffer claimed that telling the truth is dependent upon the relationship we have to the person with whom we are speaking.  He explains that parents do not tell their children everything, nor should they.  Children need to be protected from certain issues because they might be frightened or aren’t capable of handling the information.  Bonhoeffer asks, “In what way is a person entitled to demand truthful speech from others?”  He uses an example of a child being asked by her teacher in front of the whole class if her father is an alcoholic. 

Dietrich says,

A teacher asks a child in front of the class whether it is true that his father often comes home drunk.  It is true, but the child denies it.  The teacher’s question has placed him in a situation for which he is not yet prepared.  He feels only that what is taking place is an unjustified interference in the order of the family and that he must oppose it.  What goes on in the family is not for the ears of the class in school.  The family has its own secret and must preserve it.  The teacher has failed to respect the reality of this institution.  The child ought now to find a way of answering which would comply with the rule of the family and the rule of the school.  But he is not yet able to do this.  He lacks experience, knowledge, and the ability to express himself in the right way.  As a simple no to the teacher’s questions the child’s answer is certainly untrue; yet at the same time it nevertheless gives expression to the truth that the family is an institution sui generis and that the teacher had no right to interfere in it.  The child’s answer can indeed be called a lie; yet this lie contains more truth, that is to say, it is more in accordance with reality than would have been the case if the child had betrayed his father’s weakness in front of the class.  According to the measure of his knowledge, the child acted correctly.  The blame for the lie falls back entirely upon the teacher (Ethics, 367-68)

Similarly, the covenant between parents and children demand one type of truth, while a covenant between friends requires another.  Bonhoeffer viewed his relationship with the state (Nazis) as non-covenantal.  He felt that he did not owe them the truth, nor were they in a position to demand it.  

What do you think?