Truth-telling as a Means for Reconciliation?

Lent is fast-approaching with Ash Wednesday right around the corner. Like many of you, I’m considering how I want to live these 40 days and how God is calling me to respond in these uncertain times. Where is this Lenten time calling you?

I’d like to suggest one possible focus for this season of renewal: truth-telling as a means for reconciliation.

I’m not talking about Big T “Truth” tied to closed theologies and their ecclesial counterparts. No, we have a more fundamental problem: the ability to recognize and name everyday, ordinary truth. Ironically, this is where God is most present anyway.

The past several years, however, have inundated us with the “culture of fake.” Fake news. Fake facts, too. Don’t like something? It’s fake. Before we know it, everything is a conspiracy. A sham. Hoax.

Sadly, too many seem stuck in this culture of fake. Unable, unwilling even, to center truth as a source of life and love.

Yet, Jesus instructs in the Gospel of John that “the truth will set you free” (8:32). This Lent we have an opportunity to free ourselves from the harmful stains of the recent past and reclaim truth. As a country and a citizenry – as Christians – can we believe in truth again? Can we believe in truth again when it doesn’t fit our preferred narrative? That is when truth is needed most.

Also in the Gospel of John, Jesus proclaims: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (14:6). To be sure, the cult of lies and the culture of fake is not only a societal ill, but also a religious and spiritual disease. To follow Christ, to center our lives in God, means to be people of truth and truth-telling. God works in and through the particular, real and authentic, and to distort such for political gain is antithetical to living lives rooted in the Gospel call of love, justice and peace.

Let’s not forget that Scripture is full of attempts by the devil to disparage truth in order to amass power and wreak havoc. The devil tempts Jesus to turn away from his true self and embrace worldly values of fame, power and wealth. Like him, do we have the courage to rebuke these overtures and focus on our truth in God?

In the aftermath of January 6 and the Capitol attack, many Christian denominations have rightly called for a return to truth and truth-telling. In fact, a Sojourners article, No Unity Without Justice, calls Christian leaders to reflect on how truth is essential for unity. If we cannot tell the truth again – value the truth again – there will be no unity. Certainly no reconciliation. Definitely no justice. The Gospel life, recall, prioritizes each: unity, reconciliation and justice. This is “the way” of Christ. “The way” of life, light and love.

Finally, this moment isn’t only about recommitting to be people of truth. What’s also vital is the praxis of truth-telling: to know the truth and name it in the public sphere. Given today’s obsession with the cult of lies and a culture of fake, this is an act of faith. It is a prophetic act. It is behavior that is both brave and hopeful. Truth, my friends, is Good News illuminating the way.

The act of truth-telling has the power to heal, unify and reconcile the brokenness all around us.

This Lent it may behoove Christians to explore ways we can delve deeper into the value of truth and the virtue of truth-telling. In lieu of the destructive and violent culture of fake, we can, together, cultivate a culture of truth and encounter. Lent is just the time to sift and strip away that which serves only to divide and destroy. Our transformation into Easter people awaits. But it will take the truth to get there.