Speaking Truth to Power

Almost two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth suffered and was brutally murdered because he spoke truth against the religious and secular powers in control during his time. In that regard, his death was no different from the intentional suffering and murder of many other “innocent” humans who died throughout history because they spoke truth to the powers of their time and place.

At the time of Jesus, scourging and crucifixion was the routine method that Rome used to extinguish the lives of those who opposed it, publicizing their deaths as examples of what will happen to any others who opposed it. Other powers throughout history may have used different means or methods for silencing those who spoke truth against them, but all ended with a similar result—the physical, psychological, and emotional suffering and death of a human being.

The question arises whether we can ascribe any meaning to these deaths? For example, the death of Socrates, who lived about four hundred years before the time of Jesus, occurred from his choosing to die by poisoning himself rather than abandoning his search for truth. In more modern times we only need to consider Mahatma Gandhi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Bishop Oscar Romero, and other persons who may be less known such as Ruqia Hassan, who were all murdered because they spoke truth to power. We can search throughout history and find many others who experienced similar fates.

Can we find meaning in their deaths for valuing the necessity to speak truth to power, even above preserving their own lives? Didn’t Jesus do the same by continuing to speak the truth against the powers of his time and he paid the ultimate price for doing so? Fortunately, many others continue to speak truth to power today, even at the risk of forfeiting their own lives.