Speaking truth is something that is supposedly valued by culture. We try to teach our children to not lie but once we all enter the real world we find that truth is something that we categorize. We withhold parts of the information, we ignore things, we turn blind eyes to situations.This often common in many workplaces. You don't say the truth because you do have to fear losing your job or suffering other consequences. And for those of you who want to argue that people can't do that because that's retribution, let me just say people find unofficial ways of doing it. So when someone comes along and speaks truth to power it's generally not met with positivity. So with all of the consequences why speak truth to power? Because if you follow beliefs of most faith traditions then it is your job as a person in the universe to speak truth to the powers that oppress or commit wrongs. It is our job to question those who hold power over others. If no one ever said anything to power then we'd all be screwed. Think of Gandhi, Bonhoeffer, Jesus. Power isn't a bad thing but it is when it is abused. That's why we speak truth to power to prevent abuse of power, to bring about the changes needed in the world. It's not easy or the popular thing to do but it's much needed.
In a conversation with a more conservative Christian then me (take in mind I call myself a bed-wetting liberal and I’m also a big time Process Theologian) the person started rambling off scripture quotes (proof texting really) to make a point. I have never claimed to be a great memorizer of anything. And even though I have read the Bible many times and own many copies of the Bible, I am still not a person who can just pull out scripture references in mid conversation. I do have several verses that I turn to and love dearly but I can’t tell you word for word what John 2:5 or Ruth 1:4 says. This got me thinking, why do Christians really feel the need to qualify their faith based on the amount of scripture that they can recite from memory? While it may be very handy to be able to quote scripture in a variety of situations, I believe that this can be dangerous. Proof texting (pulling scripture, from any religion, to support an argument without careful and learned consideration for its cont
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