Telling the truth for God's sake

Doing "pastoral journalism" in the midst of an upheaval

by Meg Jenista, Staff Writer

If you walk through the checkout line at the grocery store, scandalous headlines scream at you from The National Enquirer, Star, People Magazine, and US Weekly. A summer-long media frenzy over TomKat's missing baby is abated by a full-spread in Vanity Fair. Bradjolina; do I hear wedding bells? Season spoilers for Grey's Anatomy in TV Guide; I do a quick check over my shoulder and surreptitiously slip that one into my cart.

No one is immune to this barrage of information that masquerades itself as journalism. Nevertheless, is it journalism? Is journalism nothing more than the doling out of information — the more, the better? Is journalism truth-telling at all costs? Does journalism look anything akin to feeding time in the shark tank at Sea World? Should it?

These are not questions I have struggled with casually. Certainly over the past three weeks, the website and press coverage of Ruth Tucker's departure from the seminary has affected us, from the administration on down to the faculty, staff, and students. How does responsible Christian — dare I say pastoral — journalism respond to such an event?

Responsible journalism concerns itself with getting the facts straight, following leads, quoting reputable sources and, very simply, doing what it takes to get the story right. As a writer for Kerux, I hope that what I write qualifies as responsible journalism. With regard to Kerux's coverage of the Tucker story, we have talked both on and off the record with students, administrators, and faculty. A week ago, we met with Dr. Tucker for three hours and viewed some of the oft-touted documentation of the case.

The Grand Rapids Press might be commended for responsible journalism, but I want to raise the bar by asking not only what responsible journalism is but what unique responsibilities does a Christian bring to the task of journalism?

Christians are a people who speak the truth; therefore, truth telling is an integral part of responsible Christian journalism. That, of course, presents a question much bigger than I wanted to tackle on my own, so I consulted with a mentor.

What is unique about the way a Christian seeks to tell the truth? My mentor's response was that most people default to telling the truth for their own betterment and advancement, to get ahead, to jockey for position, or to attain notice or merit. Christians, on the other hand, are commanded to "Tell the truth for God's sake." If the Presbyterians have it right (and it's quite possible that they do), the chief end of humanity is to glorify God and enjoy God forever. The task of truth telling, like any other virtuous act, must be accomplished not for the glory or exoneration of the speaker/writer, but for the love of Truth, that is, the love of God.

Returning to the issue of how a seminary publication staff ought to cover the exit of one of its own under less-than-harmonious circumstances, how do we write about this in a way that will glorify God? How do we weigh in the balance God's passion for justice and peace and allow that scale to tip our journalistic hand?

As if that question doesn't make us uncomfortable enough, let me tighten the screws a little more. I realize that as seminarians we are called not only to act in ways that reflect our Christianity, but also to live into our own burgeoning pastoral sensibility. Not only do we tell the truth for God's sake, but we also carry a burden to speak the truth for the edification of God's church. As preachers and teachers, we can't possibly fill our pulpits and lecterns with all that we've learned in a week of intensive, textual analysis. When I stand before a congregation on Sunday morning, am I lying to them because I chose not to disclose the pluperfect sense of the aorist verb that captivated me for 40 minutes Tuesday morning in my study?

As practitioners of pastoral care, we will be entrusted with shocking amounts of self-disclosure from our parishioners. Is full-disclosure the same as truth telling? For example, when I answer phones at a local shelter and someone asks, "Is _____ there?" I'm required to respond, "I cannot confirm or deny that ______ is a client with us." Is such an answer dishonest? If I answer instead with full-disclosure, am I acting to the glory God and the best interest of the other? Perhaps truth telling is only one Christian virtue that must always be held in tension with several others. Love of course ranks high on the list; so do justice, mercy, humility, self-renunciation, and unity.

In the case of Tucker, we as a staff have worried about how to be just in our reporting. But how we be just when there is full disclosure from one side and silence from the other? It might be truthful to discharge information like shells from a machine gun, but would that be just? Can we speak justly when we remain ignorant on crucial matters? How do mercy, humility, self-renunciation, and unity factor in? Finally, what constitutes a loving response to a situation such as this?

In our coverage of this story, we have tried to keep these questions and our role as pastoral journalists in mind. It is our hope that we have been successful.

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