Truth Matters

Taking a Stand

I receive an email every day from Christianity Today Magazine. It gives three notable events in church history that happened on the day's date. One could make a case that July 6 was a pretty rough day in Christian History. On this day in 1535, Thomas More was beheaded. He had been sentenced to die by hanging, but Henry the VIII commuted his sentence to the swifter death of beheading. No such mercy was bestowed on Jan Hus, in 1415 he was burned at the stake for heresy. No one died, at least not immediately, but on July 6, 1054, the emissaries of the Pope placed an official document on the altar of the church in Constantinople, excommunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Celularius. The division between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy continues to today and was so complete that for most of that time the two sides couldn't even agree on what day it was. A millennium of division in the body of Christ. Two men, who did nothing worthy of death, executed. That's hardly a banner day. It's a day you remember, not celebrate. But, there is a common thread in these stories that is worth upholding. Likely you know very little about these three stories. All involved politics, church and/or secular, so, no doubt, the narratives are complicated. One thing is clear, though, right on the surface. All three of these events are driven by a desire to act on the truth. I'm not saying I agree with what was done. Clearly, in each case somebody was wrong. Just as clearly, though, and as plain as the nose on your face, in each account, there is a dedication to the proposition that truth matters. Some truths are so valuable and indispensable that they are worth dying for. I fear that in my day, the 21st Century Hus would have rationalized a way to avoid the flames, modern More would have made a decision shaped by the latest public opinion poll, and new millennium West and East would have swapped flowery, meaningless declarations and met for coffee, followed by a joint press conference. As I look at this listing of three days in history that should have been just ordinary, I am reminded that truth matters. That's extraordinary. Truth, let's labor to get it right and let's hold it as precious, sometimes more precious than life itself. It's STTA (Something To Think About).