Pray for Truth
It’s been a rough week for a lot of us in the U.S. Our rule of law seems under siege by leaders attempting to redraw lines between right and wrong, blurring once-common notions of truth.
This reality played out this week in my home city of Boston, where a U.S. Customs official ignored an order from a federal court and deported an Iranian Northeastern University student who was here legally with a student visa. In the span of those same few days, the U.S. Senate, presiding over the impeachment trial of our sitting president on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice, continued to attempt to conduct a trial lacking such basic ingredients as evidence and witness testimony.
There’s no shortage of analysis by people much smarter than I who argue that both our immigration policies and the impeachment proceedings have tentacles that stretch well into the future of our nation, far outlasting the next election. But to me, at their core, these are questions of truth — whether or not truth matters to you and me, and whether we will demand that our nation be governed by it. In this context, as a woman of faith and an American, I had to consider the question: What is the source, the well-spring of truth today?
As a nation of immigrants, Americans of faith throughout our history have offered many answers to that question, including: God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Shiva, Akal Murat. The Latter-day Saint apostle Bruce R. McConkie once said, “Faith and truth cannot be separated. If there is to be faith, there must first be truth.” Of course, this is a messy concept because so many of us have faith in different and (sometimes) seemingly opposing truths.
Yet faith in a benevolent power, by any name, can yield game-changing results: awakening our humility, beckoning us to look outside of self for purpose, expanding our hearts, enlightening our minds, and reminding us of the fact that we are — at the same time — both impotent and mighty. To me, this collective faith of many hues is the very power that has moved the mountains that have so often stood between us and the impossibly great nation we have become. And just as “if there is to be faith, there must first be truth,” I believe that today, possibly more than ever in my lifetime, the reverse is also true: If there is to be truth, there must first be faith.
To all people of faith, America needs us. I echo the call of others and ask that we, in whatever words we choose, pray for our country and pray for truth like never before. In 1776, the great American political activist Thomas Payne, said: “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom [and, I would add, truth] should not be highly rated.”
No longer can we afford to esteem lightly truth as the basis for our governance. The deck seems to be stacked against us, but is it? Today, may we choose faith over fear, empathy over apathy, and power over paralysis by enacting one of our greatest superpowers — prayer — that together, we may invoke the forces of Heaven that truth may prevail. #PrayforTruth
Elizabeth Davis-Edwards is a member of Mormon Women for Ethical Government.
