Telling Truths in Church : Scandal, Flesh, and Christian Speech

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Summary: The Vital Importance of "Telling Truths"
Review: To those who have not yet read it, Mark D. Jordan's "Telling Truths in Church" may seem like a reaction to (or even an exploitation of) the Catholic Church scandals revolving around priestly abuse and its cover-up. But in fact, Jordan's slim but crucially important volume is actually the transcript of a series of essays that were prepared before the scandals started to hit the media.

This is not to state, however, that the scandals have nothing to do with the topics Jordan addresses. It is Jordan's contention that speech in the Christian churches (and Jordan refers not only to the Catholic Church but to other Christian churches) has become narrowed and self-censored in such a way that it has seriously compromised the Churches' ability to speak truthfully about people's lives and faith experiences.

In a series of essays, Jordan discusses several topics: Church reform, Christian marriage, the practice of theology, and Jesus Christ as a fully human and sexual being. Jordan asserts that the Churches fail in speaking truthfully about these topics, and also that the Churches try to silence or discourage additional points of view that speak to the range of human experiences not addressed in "official" speech. To put it more simply, current Church talk doesn't give us the whole story, and it's up to us as people of faith to speak up and fill in the missing pieces.

Jordan's book is full of insights and observations that make it ideal for public discussion or private, prayerful reflection. The book is particularly important in an age when the task of theology is often misunderstood: some Church authorities, with the current emphasis on "obedience," feel theologians should supply believers with authoritative propositions to be memorized, rather than questions to help guide our reflection on God's mystery. As Jordan states in the concluding essay, "obedience [should] mean not that you take as true whatever you are told, but that you commit yourself to consider carefully what is said to you." In other words, the lived practice of theology--the process of "telling truths"--becomes a loving task for all believers, not just for leaders who think they have all the answers!