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Days ago, our nation reflected on the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was rightly celebrated for providing us with a vision of an America built on justice. His work was guided by the concept of the Beloved Community — a world in which spirit of equality, of sisterhood and brotherhood, pervades all of our societal structures. Raising his eyes to this elevated his vision and reminded him and all of us that his task was not just for the here and now, but for building America’s ideals of justice for generations to come.
Days ago, U.S. senators swore to do impartial justice according to the Constitution. Their oath ended with the phrase “So help me God.” This appeal to the divine is a lofty reminder that the proceedings are not merely a question of rules, but of a heightened concept of justice; of a more foundational notion of wrong and right. Raising their right hands to this oath should remind them that their task is not just for the here and now, but for building America’s ideals of justice for generations to come.
The senators’ sacred oath and the Beloved Community are siblings. They elevate the discourse from the transient to the eternal. They remind us that this current conflict is not the end, and so we have a duty to conduct this conflict in a manner which creates a community afterward.
In order to fulfill that duty and to live up to these ideals, we require truth. A future of justice and peace must be built on a foundation of truth — the whole truth. And that means that we must have evidence and testimony. All of it. If evidence and testimony is withheld, then we have not seen nor heard the whole truth, and the foundation of future peace will be fractured.
Many have defended the suppression of evidence by claiming that the process in the House was improper. Even if we accept that premise, impropriety is corrected by providing more truth, not less. By providing evidence, not by sealing it. By hearing witnesses, not by silencing them. The strident stifling of potentially pertinent information is decidedly, absolutely, a lie of omission. And a lie cannot correct a lie; only truth can do that. If the Senate does not allow testimony and other evidence to be fully considered, it will have degraded and eroded the eternal perspective of justice and the Beloved Community to the profane notion that whoever is in office is above the law. It will proclaim that power is truth, instead of the other way around.
The path to the Beloved Community is still before us, should we choose to take it. Truth is the only thing that will allow us to come out of this stronger than we were before. If we are to leave this current conflict behind us with any sense of being a nation of justice, we need to begin with an exhaustive review of all evidence. Because nothing but the truth, the whole truth, will set us free. So help us God.
Rev. Matt Schultz, an Anchorage pastor, is on the steering committee for Christians for Equality.
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