the Truth, come whence it may, cost what it will

Salman Rushdie was the keynote speaker at Emory University the year my Kristen graduated. Already admiring him as a person, his world view, what he thinks and says as well as his masterful writing as an author, I was more than delighted at the opportunity to see Rushdie up close and hear him speak. I was not disappointed. His message was singularly bold and fearless; in my view, especially at a university whose founding had been affiliated with the Methodist Church and among the audience were seminary graduates receiving MDivs and other theology degrees. 

Almost a confrontation: Rushdie was as challenging as I had anticipated, and as he finished speaking and returned to his seat I was not surprised that in the restrained applause I could feel, sense, hear stirring, murmurs of discontent, anger, offense, among the large out of doors gathering. 

Truth is irrelevant to people. That is to say, Truth that we don't like. We do not appreciate hearing things that differ from what we "know". People only tolerate messages that affirm us, that confirm our certainties. This causes many a preacher to be withholding and extremely careful of his words. My years as priest, minister, pastor, preacher, I have observed congregations of folk nodding their heads as the preacher whipped up the side they agreed with on divisive religious and social issues. Truth, if he didn't preach their certainties, the deacons would meet during coffee hour and, adjourning, tell him to empty his desk and clear off the property. My lifelong favorite is the Sunday I sat in the congregation at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, and watched heads nodding vigorously as Dr Jerry Falwell castigated as "liberal communist homosexuals" (his exact words), scientists who had carbon-dated dinosaur bones to millions of years old, when the gathered congregation's absolute literal inerrant certainty was that creation and the earth are less than six thousand years old. 

I mean, you can start with today's date and count back through Moses, Joseph, Jacob Israel, Abraham, Noah and Cain to Adam himself, and it's only some fifty-five hundred years since God said. In the name of "faith" and defensive of our certainties, it is most human of us that we check our brains at the door and cling to nonsense and ignorance.

A favorite proverb from my Episcopal seminary days is "Seek The Truth, Come Whence It May, Cost What It Will", but we hate seeking, progress, science, discovery, the advancement of Truth that discomforts us, and we will kill to defend our certainties.

Emmett Till is dead, murdered. And Dr King. Mohandas Gandhi. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Matthew Shepard beaten, tortured and left to die. A fatwa out on Salman Rushdie because of the unspeakable evil of religious certainty, and the attack on Rushdie. In our system, people are voted out of office for siding with Truth. Judges, justices, politicians and their families threatened. Citizens and populist politicians taking the side of the bullying wickedness that is their truth. No crusader for any cause, I notice and note. 

Retired military myself, in general I support and respect America's defense establishment and those in uniform who lead our nation's military. In fact, this week's issue, Aug 15, 2022, of The New Yorker has an article that quotes a letter that our senior military officer wrote (and apparently signed, but decided not to deliver) to his commander in chief. Copy-and-pasted below (scroll down), the letter is a scathing indictment by an officer who went into office as the president's firm supporter, whose eyes were opened to Truth. 

Mind, I often confess that I strongly disagree with you on every religious, social, political issue. Not Salman Rushdie "offending Islam" I'm simply passing along the observation of an officer whom I respect. Though in my years of life I have experienced much and learned a lot about humans, especially Americans, being one. At any event, I know that General Milley's letter will not change the certainties of many, but here it is, following the sentence that introduced it.     

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In the days after the Lafayette Square incident, Milley sat in his office at the Pentagon, writing and rewriting drafts of a letter of resignation. There were short versions of the letter; there were long versions. His preferred version was the one that read in its entirety:

I regret to inform you that I intend to resign as your Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thank you for the honor of appointing me as senior ranking officer. The events of the last couple weeks have caused me to do deep soul-searching, and I can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military. I thought that I could change that. I’ve come to the realization that I cannot, and I need to step aside and let someone else try to do that.

Second, you are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people—and we are trying to protect the American people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people. The American people trust their military and they trust us to protect them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and our military will do just that. We will not turn our back on the American people.

Third, I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and embodied within that Constitution is the idea that says that all men and women are created equal. All men and women are created equal, no matter who you are, whether you are white or Black, Asian, Indian, no matter the color of your skin, no matter if you’re gay, straight or something in between. It doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, or choose not to believe. None of that matters. It doesn’t matter what country you came from, what your last name is—what matters is we’re Americans. We’re all Americans. That under these colors of red, white, and blue—the colors that my parents fought for in World War II—means something around the world. It’s obvious to me that you don’t think of those colors the same way I do. It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause that I serve.

And lastly it is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas, that was fought for so hard by the Greatest Generation that they instituted in 1945. Between 1914 and 1945, 150 million people were slaughtered in the conduct of war. They were slaughtered because of tyrannies and dictatorships. That generation, like every generation, has fought against that, has fought against fascism, has fought against Nazism, has fought against extremism. It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order. You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that. It is with deep regret that I hereby submit my letter of resignation.