Creating truths

As contestations over the Hutton report spiralled, I felt I needed help in making sense of it all, so emailed a couple of friends for their thoughts. One, a former high-ranking TV current affairs editor, agreed with William Rees Mogg that Hutton was a ‘Decent man, bad judge’.  My friend’s conclusion: ‘I wonder if there was ever a judgement where the findings were so patently at odds with the published evidence. But was there ever a top judge who wasn’t more inclined to believe his peers – top politicians, top civil servants, top spooks – than mere broadcasters and journalists.’ The other friend – a journalist – declared that the Hutton debate had imbued her with a fresh sense of pride in her profession: ‘It has caused me to appreciate anew just how important us journalists are – how we dig and delve and bring about the conversations which make us into a democratic community.’ But they would say that, wouldn’t they. They’re journalists.

The debate about the Hutton report was unnerving precisely because its aim was to settle a debate, not to create a new one. In a postmodern society where we have no clear way of adjudicating between competing truth-claims, we have increasingly put our faith in public enquiries headed up by ‘impartial’ legal figures. If the furore has made nothing else clear, it has revealed to us the fallibility of this way of gaining access to the Truth.

Hutton came hot on the heels of a study day attended by members of the Board for Social Responsibility on the ‘theology of communication’.  Our key resource person was Jo Ind, a theologian and features editor on the Birmingham Post. She introduced us to the idea of truth as something which is ‘made’ rather than simply ‘told’: ‘…to write a newspaper article is not simply about holding up a mirror to reality…it is to take part in creating reality.’ As with God in the act of creation, to make truth means to bring life. To participate in truth-making means to participate in creation.

In our complex world, some yearn for easy access to objective truth. Some – Christians among them – claim to have achieved that.  But most of us know that truth – whether it is political, religious or ethical – will always be contested. And rightly so. The only option for Christians is to embrace the exciting possibilities of participation in the contestation: speaking the truth as we see it; hearing the truth as others see it; changing our minds, and bringing our critical faculties to bear as we learn to notice whose truths we have heard, who has been silenced, and why.

Alison Webster is Social Responsibility Adviser to the Diocese.
If you are interested in reading Jo Ind’s talk, email alison.webster@oxford.anglican.org