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?
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?
