Speaking the Truth in Love

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. --John 8:32

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. --Luke 6:27-28

My concordance of the Bible lists almost 300 biblical references to "truth" and more than 600 to "love." The God of the Bible is described as a God of truth, who hates lies and falsehood but delights in the truth and whose justice will vindicate the truth. More than 80 times in the gospels, Jesus precedes a teaching with the words "I tell you the truth," and says of himself, "I am the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6).

The Holy Spirit is named the "Spirit of truth," and Jesus promises that the Spirit "will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13). The biblical writers tell us simply that "God is love" (1 John 4:16). We are told that the greatest of all the gifts is love (1 Corinthians 13) and that without love everything else means nothing.

The two great commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40); and, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus extends the commandment of love to include even our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48). John says that whoever does not love does not know God and that the surest sign of Jesus' disciples is that they love one another.

Love and truth. Both come from the heart of God and are at the core of Jesus' teaching, but to put them together can be a difficult thing. Yet to unite truth and love in a world of hate and falsehood is as necessary as it is hard. Paul calls us to resist "the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming" by, instead, "speaking the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:14-15).

WE OFTEN WRESTLE with this question of truth and love here at Sojourners. How do we tell the truth while still reflecting the love of Christ? In particular, how do we treat our adversaries--those of great wealth and power that oppress the poor, the public officials who live by falsehood and violence, the political rulers who persecute faith and conscience and who prosecute our friends and us, and the religious leaders who collaborate with the powers that be and provide pious justifications for the injustice of the status quo? These questions are not easy ones; we find them fraught with many dilemmas, ambiguities, temptations, and dangers.

Our readers have sometimes responded to our editorial treatment of political figures, the leaders of the Religious Right, or just those with whom we disagree. We have been praised for courageously telling the truth, chided for being too harsh and judgmental, and even occasionally criticized for being too conciliatory and naive when assuming the best about others' motivations.

Well, we do try very hard to tell the truth and to have the courage to do so, no matter what the consequences. I'm glad our readers recognize and appreciate such truth-telling when they see it. However, I believe that sometimes our own anger, sin, and self-righteousness have gotten the best of us in talking about our adversaries. We have, on occasion, crossed over that line where truth and love are held together by faith.

At those moments it was our own prejudices, frustrations, and judgments that became visible instead of the authentic biblical perspective that we are so committed to bring to the times in which we live. In learning what it means to speak the truth in love, I suspect we all will need to shed some misconceptions and expand our understanding of what truth and love really are.

First, we must get over the notion that truth is hard and love is soft. The prophets burned with the love of God and yet spoke the hardest words in the Bible against oppression and injustice and against those persons responsible for it. "Thus saith the Lord," thundered these messengers of God as they exposed the sins of the people and the crimes of the nation, while demanding what the Lord required.

Jesus, the very incarnation of the love of God, continued in that prophetic tradition in speaking very harsh words against the religious and political establishment of his day. The scribes and Pharisees were denounced as "hypocrites" and "vipers," while King Herod was derided as "that fox."

Love does not shrink from the truth, smooth over injustice, or compromise with oppression. In fact, the biblical writers suggest that to really love a people, or a nation, or a person, requires you to tell them the truth. In Jesus' encounter with the rich young man (Mark 10:17-23), he speaks such hard words about wealth that the man turns away from the gospel. But the story says that Jesus looked at the young man and that he loved him.

SECOND, WE MUST stop regarding love as mostly being polite or nice, but rather as the deeper commitment to reach out to reconcile and restore. Nonviolence is applicable to both political and personal relationships and, indeed, to journalism as much as to direct action. Nonviolence is never a failure to confront, but rather a way of confronting that flows directly from the commitment to love.

Therefore, to speak the truth in love, to confront nonviolently, always means to leave your adversary some space to move and some room to change. Rather than backing someone into a corner and leaving them no options, the truthful and loving word always carries with it the possibility of, and indeed the invitation to, conversion and transformation.

Third, we should try not to overpersonalize the evil we oppose. Individuals are responsible for their actions, especially those individuals in authority whose decisions affect so many lives; political leaders and others must therefore be called to account. For example, if a president is lying about something, that falsehood should be exposed and challenged.

However, such lies are often larger than the individual doing the lying. And to a certain extent, most of us share some complicity in the big lies a nation accepts to justify its behavior. Paul's words in Ephesians 6 are a constant reminder that we wrestle not with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers.

A Christian approach to evil is more compassionate than ideological. It sees how people get caught up in the falsehood, the injustice, and the violence they help to perpetuate. It sees the destructive potential for the evildoer as well as for the victim. A compassionate approach also sees how masses of people get swept along with evil social forces that they don't even understand.

FINALLY, I BELIEVE we are obliged to treat professing Christians in a particular way. The meaning of Matthew 18 is more clear than we have wanted it to be: If we have a grievance with a brother or sister in Christ, we should take it first to them. Very specific procedures follow as to where to go from there.

The application of this teaching is complicated by the nominal, cultural Christianity of America and made especially difficult by the professed Christian faith of so many of the nation's political leaders. But those Christians who take the power of the state into their hands must then be accountable to public scrutiny and Criticism and cannot hide behind processes that are most appropriate within the boundaries of the church.

For people of faith and conscience, to speak the truth is necessary for our own integrity and for the health and survival of the nations. But speaking in love will always be the distinguishing mark of the Christian witness.

To speak the truth in love is our commitment here at Sojourners. With continual self-examination, lots of prayer and grace, and help from you, our readers, we hope to stay true to that commitment.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.