Article September 7, 1992 Issue

Second Thought

Looking again at news and commentary

"Politics and the Darkness of Lying" by James M. Wall—November 6, 1991

The Christian Century

"Lying sometimes may help us accomplish an immediate goal .... But each lie undermines the network of trust on which relationships rely. Lying is wrong, furthermore, because it violates our covenant with God, a covenant which sustains us in our human frailty. Without a moral principle backing our daily intercourse, we are left to function with the utilitarian assumption that if it works, do it; if it feels good, try it....

"Near the end of the Sermon on the Mount is a word for a nation that rewards deception and honors lying: 'The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness.'"

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