March 2, 2025: “A Commitment to Truth”

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

Does nothing mean anything anymore? I ask myself this question when I hear what George Orwell called “doublespeak” in our current political discourse. Intentional uses of language – like freedom, safety, justice, and efficiency – to distort or disguise the reality and intentions behind policy. How do we remain committed to truth in an age of disinformation and subterfuge?

View the video archive of this service here:

Sermon Transcript

03.02.25 - Commitment to Truth

UU Church of Bloomington, IN

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

SERMON

This month of March, we are exploring the theme of commitment and the many ways that commitment shows up and brings meaning to our lives. Today, we begin by exploring what it means to be committed to truth.

When I first thought about this sermon, I thought of Stephen Colbert’s first ever episode of The Colbert Report. Can you believe that show launched 20 years ago this year? The Colbert Report was a satirical take on conservative opinion shows that masqueraded as “news” shows. In the first episode, Colbert introduced the term “Truthiness.”

This made-up term resonated so powerfully that it became the word of the year and made it into the dictionary. According to Dictionary.com “Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts."

Stephen Colbert - not as his satirical character - but as himself said, “It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all…I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?”

(From interview with AV Club https://www.avclub.com/stephen-colbert-1798208958)

Twenty years later, I might argue that we’ve hit the “event horizon” of truthiness - the place where the level of misinformation, alternative facts, propaganda and just flat out repeated lies have grown to such a level it can be hard to know what it true anymore. But truth still matters. As do those who remain committed to truth.

As Unitarian Universalists, truth holds a central place in our tradition. Today, we opened our service with chalice lighting words that for many years this congregation read in unison to begin each service:

“We light this chalice, the lamp of our heritage,

for The light of truth

The warmth of community

The fire of commitment”

In many UU congregations across the country, a version of this covenant is read to begin services:

“Love is the doctrine of this congregation,

The quest for truth is our sacrament

And service is our prayer.”

And in our seven principles and repeated in our current UU values – we affirm as central to our faith “the free and responsible search for truth.”

These are not just words we say, this is a deep thread in our tradition.

We believe in the search for truth as sacred, never-ending work. And truth for us is not an already established belief system – it is the work we do as individuals and communities to understand our lives, our world, what matters, and what is needed – and we do this by growing in our knowledge – of science, the arts, philosophy, history and the wisdom of the world’s religious traditions. Truth is not the same as facts, but it is informed by facts, as well as values, beliefs, knowledge, logic, evidence and wisdom.

A fierce commitment to truth – and the search for truth – is rooted in our history as a heretical faith shaped by people who dared to question religious orthodoxy and experienced repression and even death for expressing their faith.

One place where Unitarian theology – the understanding of Jesus as a prophet among other prophets, but not God (in other words Unitarian – God is one – rather than trinitarian) – emerged during the Protestant Reformation. A time of tremendous change and tumult that was due in part of the invention of the printing press and the sudden, public availability of scripture. No longer just in the hands of the Holy Roman Church – new interpretations and understandings emerged. Unitarian was one of them.

In 2018, I visited our siblings in faith with the Hungarian Unitarian Church; whose headquarters are in Kolozsvar, Romania (also known as Cluj-Napoca). During that visit, we toured St. Michael’s church, which was built in the 1400’s as a Catholic Church, but from 1566-1716 it was a Unitarian Church. Our tour guide told us that when it was a Unitarian Church, the church put a printing press in the sacristry to publish books and Unitarian texts. And the press was run by a woman! I love this image of the room off the sanctuary where the priest prepares for service, where the robes and stoles and communion is kept being turned into a place for the publishing of books and the distribution of knowledge!!

This commitment to publishing and the distribution of knowledge is also a strong thread in American Unitarianism. One of these oldest Unitarian institutions in the U.S. is Beacon Press –founded in 1854. Even before the American Unitarian Association was formed, the first thing we did as Unitarians was create a publishing house. And one of the things that Beacon Press – now fully a part of the UUA – is most known for is the publishing of the Pentagon Papers – a report of the U.S.’s involvement in Southeast Asia and Vietnam in the decades before and during the Vietnam War. Despite intimidation and a raid from the FBI, they held firm to their commitment to truth and freedom and published the report. And Beacon Press continues this commitment to courageous publishing today.

Knowledge matters, facts matter, diverse voices matter, history matters. And if they didn’t matter, their wouldn’t be so much effort to distort and hide them.

What does it mean to be committed to truth in an age of disinformation and deceit? For this, we move from Colbert’s satire to the biting commentary of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 – where the authoritarian government – The Party – rules and controls the people through the distortion of truth and the rewriting of history.

There are two major forces by which they do this. The first is doublespeak – the way language is intentionally used to disguise or distort the truth. We have so many example of this today. Take how the present party in power proclaims an unwavering commitment to free speech, while also being a driving force behind book bans and censorship. Or celebrating freedom and personal liberty as core values, while denying bodily autonomy, agency and criminalizing trans people and their bodies. Where is freedom and liberty in these policies?

But even more dangerous than doublespeak is the effort to rewrite and remake history to fit a political agenda. In Orwell’s 1984, the Party recognizes how important history is – and so creates the Ministry of Truth to rewrite history. Here is a quote from the book:
“‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory.”

“And unending series of victories over your own memory.” Wow – repeat a lie enough – again and again – get the news to repeat it and it begins to be believed as truth. Go further, and rewrite history, eliminate any facts or evidence to the contrary, so that history books say not only is this true, it has always been true.

We are witnessing this through the attacks on DEI and Black History, for we see both the efforts to lie about the present while also erasing the past. Right now the government is not only defunding studies that investigate inequity and disparity in healthcare and housing and other areas that cut across lines of race and poverty; they are also removing data from previous studies that had been publicly available. For why would we need to work on overcoming racism if we just delete its history and any data that demonstrates it exists. We can pretend – as too many politicians wish to pretend – that is not and has never been a problem.

Orwell’s goal in 1984 was to caution those not yet living in authoritarian regimes to be aware of the tactics used – notably for today, the distortion of language, history, facts and truth (not to mention constant surveillance) – to gain and reinforce control. And in so doing, he was reminding us how critically important a commitment to truth, knowledge and history is. Because history and our understanding of the past deeply shapes our present, and it also shapes what we imagine is possible.

A powerful and concrete example of this is the legacy of the Freedom Schools of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1963, as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (or SNCC) was preparing for deep organizing in Mississippi, including volunteer recruitment and voter education and voter registration, they recognized that many young Black Mississippians suffered in what they described as “an educational environment that was ‘geared to squash intellectual curiosity and different thinking.’” So in 1964, SNCC created the Freedom School curriculum, which had two broad sections – one focused on citizenship and rights and the second focused on Black history. SNCC leaders understood how important education and knowledge of one’s own history is to engaging in politics, understanding one’s own power, and working to make change for your community. In the end there were over 41 Freedom Schools across Mississippi – and they became powerful sources of leadership development to continue in the movement. (From “The Freedom Schools Movement” The SNCC Legacy Project, https://sncclegacyproject.org/the-freedom-schools-movement/)

This model of freedom schools might need to be revitalized to teach the history not being taught in schools.

In an age of disinformation, attacks on history, education and facts – truth matters – and matters more. And it is important for us today – to draw strength from our history – as Unitarian Universalists and as Americans. We have a role to play in preserving history, on speaking truth and passing on essential truths and values to our children.

Calling back to the wisdom of W.H.Auden, may we be one among the many other points of light flashing out wherever justice is spoken or created. And may we, composed of Eros and of stardust, struggling through despair – seeking to live proud and free in the midst of the negation of the present day – may we continue to show an affirming flame for life, for truth, for love.

. . .