I've been exchanging e-mails with a missionary couple who don't want you to know where they live. Actually, they probably wouldn't mind you knowing where they live as long as they could keep militant followers of other faiths from knowing where they live and foreign governments from knowing what they do.
I stumbled into this indirectly. They sent a letter to the editor commending student summer missionaries who served with them this year. But the letter did not indicate where the missionaries live. And since our policy calls for publishing both the name and city of residence for our letter writers, I responded, asking where they live.
Clarifying exchange
They replied by sending me the name of their hometown, which has absolutely nothing to do with the summer missionaries. I doubt few, if any, of the summer missionaries could tell you where their summer supervisors grew up.
So, I wrote back and asked for their real residence. And I griped a little about the cloak-and-dagger information tactics we get from missions-sending agencies these days.
They replied—correctly—that I had been insensitive to their security concerns.
I responded—contritely—that I was sorry. I don't want to put them in harm's way.
Truth or consequences
But this exchange has got me to thinking about a question that bumps up against both missions philosophy and Christian ethics: Is it OK for missionaries to lie?
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For example, the missionary husband told me: "As a cross-cultural worker who is traveling in and out of closed countries and who lives in a part of the **** that is constantly under travel advisories because of extremism and because we are following standard procedure from those above us, that (their hometown in the States) is all the infomation we can give."
This is not uncommon. Here at the Standard, we hear about missionaries who "travel in and out of closed countries" all the time. In order to get "in and out of closed countries," they must misrepresent themselves and their purposes to the governments that examine passports and issue visas.
truth vs. Truth
So, is untruth in service to the Truth a virtue?
What do you think? I could argue this round or flat:
On the one hand, we want to spread the gospel. Some countries are closed to Christian missionaries. So, the only way to get in is to lie and/or at least indirectly misrepresent the reason for going.
But on the other hand, aside from lying to the government, does the misrepresentation undermine the credibility of the gospel?
It's a challenging, but important, question.
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