Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

“What is truth?”

Christians will generally recognize that quote from Pontius Pilate. “What is truth?” It was a rhetorical question, a cynical response, to what Jesus had just revealed: “I have come into the world, to testify to the truth.”

I believe the Church is in a moment now when we have to be agents of truth. I think we owe it to ourselves, our communities, and most of all to God to be a Body, the Body of Christ, that people can look to when trying to figure out what is true in their daily lives.

So much of our society is now built on half-truths, distortions, exaggerations, and outright lies. This is not just dangerous to our person — to our health. It is dangerous to our souls.

First, an example of our our person. We now know that social media has been flooded with disinformation from bad actors (agents of hostile powers in particular) about the so-called dangers of vaccines. What seems a silly pre-occupation of some people on the fringes is now becoming a real danger or our health. As more people refuse to receive vaccines the corresponding risk of a flare up of diseases we thought gone increases.

In the current crisis if people refuse the vaccine, if and when it comes, we will not see the quick resolution to the pandemic that we are all hoping for. This has obvious implications for the health of our communities.

It even more dangerous for our souls. We are now, in too many places, making the calculated decision about how many lives it is ok to lose. We are making decisions about how or whether we will let refugees fleeing ghastly situations come to our country. We are making decisions about whether and how we will keep small businesses open and people employed. We are making decisions about what communities we are comfortable risking and what people it is ok to risk to keep things moving along as normally as possible.

Each of those moral decisions requires good, clear, thoughtful analysis. Each of them requires access to and an understanding of what is true. The reward system in our society now, for too many actors, is skewed toward outrage. Patient and thoughtful presentation and processing of what is true falls to the wayside as quick fixes or perpetual fear are used for the most gain.

When Jesus challenged Pilate, what Pilate failed to realize, is that it was Truth who was standing in front of him. God is truth. So this pursuit of what is true is not simply a rhetorical or political exercise for Christians. The pursuit of truth, for us, is a theological necessity. Worshiping and praising and serving God is at one with the hard work of discerning what is true. It is only in discerning what is true and what is right that we can make decisions that hold the health and well-being of the whole community in the balance.

The root of ethics is found in discerning what is true. There are too many forces now at play which find truth to be inconvenient. There are too many forces at work that are not simply unethical but that are profoundly destructive. They are not only undermining our common life, our health, and our ethical compass but are risking souls by tempting the, to give into anger or despair.

May the Church always be an agent of forthright and bold truth. May we always be inconvenient to those offering easy answers and cheap rage. May we always be at the work of serving and seeking the God who is Truth.

Yours in Christ,

Robert