2nd Opinion: Good manners & speaking truth

Posted: 4/13/07

2nd Opinion:
Good manners & speaking truth

By Beth Newman

The early onset of the presidential campaign has brought a call for a “return to civility.” There seems, however, little prospect for any immediate restoration of such civility, assuming it ever existed. We’re not sure any longer what such civility would look like; and there is a great deal at stake.

In Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Men, Sheriff Bell is speculating on the causes of violence enveloping his Texas county: “It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners. Any time you quit hearin’ ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am,’ the end is pretty much in sight.” This observation provoked some amusement for reviewers, but McCarthy is quite serious. He knows—and we ought to remember—manners always are a code for something deeper. They proceed from a prior understanding of the world.

But as odd as it might sound, “manners” as lack of offense has led to a distortion of Christian discipleship. The pressure to be nice, maintain civility, get along, be agreeable has crippled our ability to speak truthfully. Too often, these kind of “manners” picture God as a therapeutic nice guy who simply wants us to be nice too.

As is well known, Jesus’ words offended his listeners time and again.

Recently in my theology class, we have been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. When Bonhoeffer wrote this classic, national socialism was on a steep rise in Germany. Many Christians willingly gave their allegiance to its ideology. In the face of a politics based on lies, Bonhoeffer sought to discern how Christians might learn to live more truthfully so that they would be capable of speaking the truth.

This simple classic is about life together in Christian community, yet its simplicity belies the profound grasp Bonhoeffer had on costly discipleship. He rightly perceived that only when Christians practice speaking the truth to one another, through confession, encouragement, admonishment, hymn-singing, prayer and other such practices, would they be able to live and speak truthfully before the world. His concern was not whether truthfulness “offends” or violates a code of agreeableness. In his context of Nazi Germany, too much was at stake to worry about merely trying to get along for its own sake.

And what about our context?

We might be tempted to think, “Well, Bonhoeffer lived in more urgent times, as Hitler and his cohorts were carrying out their monstrous plan.”

But this tempting thought is deceptive. In every time and place, Christians are called to speak truthfully to and about those powers and allegiances that easily compromise their lives and thus make Christ’s body less visible.

The question is, “Are practices of truthful speech in place in our faith communities?” Are we able to confess our sins to one another? Are we willing to have others admonish and encourage us in our times of need? Are we able to see ourselves as members one of another, such that we recognize God has given us our brothers and sisters in Christ, in all their strengths and weaknesses?

Christian manners are not about civility or agreeableness, nor are they ways of manipulating so as to get our way. They are rather faithful habits that enable us to live truthfully before a world that easily gets lost in deception.

We—as Christians—live in a world that is increasingly fragmented, and there is no more important task facing us than the forging of a vision of the common good based on the truth of who and whose we are.

Beth Newman is professor of theology and ethics at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. Her column is distributed by Associated Baptist Press.