“You
shall not give false testimony against your neighbour”
Exodus 20:16
This
is about the courts: Primarily the official law courts and secondarily what is
often called “the court of public opinion.
Yes
I know when we were youngsters this commandment was always just
applied to telling lies in general. We need to rid ourselves and our
teaching of the Commandments from the temptation to make them
underpin human ideas. Jesus had a lot to say about this tendency in
his day with comments like “You have let go of the commands of God
and are holding on to human traditions.” (Mark 7:8).
In
any endeavour to build a system of morals based on what can be known
of the moral character of God we must exercise continual vigilance
against our own bias and presuppositions.
Our
constant temptation will be to fall back to “proof text-ing”
where we scour the Bible for verses that seem to lend weight to what
we already believe. When we are using the Bible the right way we will
more often find it shows us ourselves to be wrong. We will find that
it judges and condemns our own thoughts actions and prejudices. Will
we accept this condemnation and let God change us into better people
– people who more and more believe and practice what is in accord
with his moral character? Or will we chose to go our own headstrong
way? That is the question. That is the temptation. That is the
pitfall waiting to turn our noble dream into base hypocrisy.
So
to deal fairly with this commandment we have to be honest about what
it says. It is not about telling lies in the general sense. It is
about the vital importance of a just and true legal system.
Secondarily it is about what I have called the court of public
opinion.
Yes
the Bible does have things to say about honesty
in general: not telling lies; not using false weights and measures,
not cheating your employees and so forth. The Bible has some
very stern and important things to say about these. I too want to
delve into some of these issues. This Commandment is the closest
subject heading under which to discuss them. So in later blogs I will
discuss them. But we must not pretend that
these allied Biblical issues are the main thrust of this
Commandment.
Back
to the subject of law-courts.
I
have noticed earnest “Christians” who despise the law courts. Big
mistake! The Bible, almost from cover-to-cover hammers home the
necessity of law courts and the vital importance to God that the
courts dispense justice.
These
earnest people find a single proof text (that itself should be a
warning that they are wrong!) in 1 Corinthians 6. They take it to
mean that 'believers' should not use the secular law courts. In the
young Corinthian church, one can see Paul's point – they were
demonstrating to the pagan society around them that their new-found
faith had not improved their morals or their business ethics. Better
indeed that some believer could bring the contestants to a better
frame of mind and behaviour. Better still they should repent of their
avarice. However in, for instance modern Australia, where the court
system has been built up and reformed continuously since then by
God-fearing people who were trying to make it dispense justice
reliably, this is not a true application of Paul's injunction: quite the reverse: it is a silly thing to say.
I
have had some direct experience of both the secular law courts and
church courts. Some personal, but mostly through the work of my
sister, a retired lawyer who has defended clergy and lay people
unjustly hauled before church courts. One can see some of her work on
www.churchdispute.com/sample-page/
From these experiences both personal and vicarious I say without
hesitation that “church” or “Christian” courts compare very
badly to “secular” law courts.
Sadly
I have noticed that church courts tend to be corrupt – they put
their idea of what would benefit the institution, or implement the
wishes of say an archbishop far ahead of justice. They want the
approval, as Jesus observed in his day, of humans, not the approval of
the only God! I have even seen people who are judges in the secular
system behave in church courts in a manner which would never be
tolerated in the secular justice system.
As
to Christian people who are not trained in the law, they tend to be
just plain silly. Sweeping statement I know, but in my experience it
is a just condemnation. Jesus said we should be wise as serpents but
innocent as doves. We humans tend to get it the other way round! My
almost universal observation is that well meaning “Christians”
who dabble in dispute resolution or get themselves onto church
tribunals have absolutely no concept “justice” or "a fair trial" in any form let
alone as God depicts his passion for it.
Back
to our main topic: One indispensable ingredient in a justice system
that works is honest testimony.
Decades
ago a relative who was at that stage a young barrister told me of his
complete frustration in most of the cases dealt with in court. He
said witnesses just lied. They brazenly lied under oath.
This
problem is the crux of this commandment. You can't have justice
without truth. You can't find the truth if people give false evidence
in court. In our time we have gone soft on perjury. That must be
corrected.
The
specifics of correcting this problem is largely in the hands of
specialists in the law. That is outside my expertise. I can say this
though:
1.
In the Old Testament perjury was treated far more seriously than we
treat it. The punishment for giving false evidence was the same as
the punishment the accused person would have received if found
guilty. Today perjury seems to go largely unpunished
2.
Forensic evidence is relatively new. Some decades ago in Australia
there was a case that seized public attention where a woman who was convicted
of murdering her baby was later totally exonerated: as she had always
maintained, a dingo (wild dog) did take her baby. One
of the many aspects of this terrible miscarriage of justice was
forensic evidence. Experts gave evidence against her that a sticky
substance found under the dashboard of her car was human blood.
Eventually it was shown to be factory-applied rust-preventer. I sometimes wonder how confidant these “experts” would have been with their
damning evidence if they had faced being sent to prison for 'life'
themselves if their testimony was shown to be wrong!
So
Lawyers and law-makers: what can you do to tackle the problem of
“false testimony”
The
other side to the decline in truthfulness in court is religious.
There have been times in history when even rather nasty people would
not, as they put it “perjure their souls”. That is they were
sufficiently aware of the gravity of perjury and of God's judgement
that they would not lie under oath even thought they committed other
serious crimes. It is my sad observation that professing “Christians”
from lay people right up the hierarchy now have no difficulty lying under
oath. Perhaps they rationalise it as being “for the good of the
Church” perhaps they are sure in their own minds of the “right”
side of the case and think that justifies perjury. Perhaps they are
just influenced by the current social acceptance of perjury.
We
have got to change. God thought it so important as to make it
one of the Big Ten commandments. We have got to start with professing
Christians and sweep out to all the community: False testimony makes
a mockery of justice! Perhaps the first step is re-discovering a
proper fear of God. God hates evil with a passion. If we chose to
continue to love evil rather than good we will not escape punishment
at the final judgement: That God promises!
As
a secular (but Christian informed) society we must re-utilise all the
resources of socialisation and moral education-cum-formation to
enforce this social more: When put under oath
in court you will
tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!
Next
time... Slander: false testimony in the court of public opinion.
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