There’s a strange assumption that’s taken hold of many claiming to be seeking truth today. From politics to religion and beyond, many people take for granted that the people most qualified to share that truth in a trustworthy way are those who are most critical of a particular person or institution:
Do you want to know the truth about a certain political leader? Many have been ready to tell you, including many who despise the candidate.
Are you interested in the truth about a particular religious leader or faith? Plenty are eager to give you a “tell all,” barely hiding their disdain and contempt.
It’s a monumental decision who we end up trusting to tell us the truth. Yet this isn’t something many even think about much. Instead, almost by default, we often end up listening to the loudest, angriest voice in the room—or the one making the wildest and scariest accusations … deciding “well, they must really know what they’re talking about!”
Trusting those who love
Two years ago, religious historian Jed Woodworth spoke about this in an interview for Deseret News. He laid bare the core question with an illustration: “If you were to try and convince me of the merits of gardening and I didn’t believe in it, would you want to go to someone who dislikes gardening or detests gardening, or hasn’t put time into gardening?”
“Or would you want to go to someone who reads gardening books on their vacations — someone who’s so into gardening and loves it so much that they want every little detail to be told well as they show you the beauties of gardening?”
That’s the problem, Woodworth explained, with “saying that if you’re deeply invested in something, that somehow you have less ability to tell the truth.”
Based on that logic, Woodworth should definitely not be trusted, having given 10 years of his professional life to help guide the team behind “Saints,” a multi-volume history of the diverse peoples joining the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Anyone who feels a deep love and commitment for something, from this vantage point, is surely “too biased” to acknowledge the full truth about something—more likely to “paint a rosy picture” that leaves out essential realities. Better to go to someone willing to tell you the uncomfortable facts, right?
Trusting those with hostility
Too often, this Latter-day Saint historian adds, people think that “if they go to someone who dislikes the church, that somehow those people are more invested in the truth than the people who love the church and want to see it prospering.”
Yet “why should you trust someone who has an agenda to tear something down?” asked Lisa Olsen Tait, a specialist in women’s history at the Church History Department. “Why should that be any more inherently trustworthy than someone creating a history that has the intention to build up and present a certain story?”
Both intentions—the hostile and the generous—reflect a different kind of bias and vantage point. Neither is purely “neutral.” So, we all must ask ourselves: which kind of a standpoint is more likely to reveal the full picture of beauty in a person or group?
Of course, loving something doesn’t guarantee that we’ll see it clearly, any more than disliking something guarantees we’ll misunderstand it. But why have we become so accustomed to treating the first as a disqualification and the second as a good sign?
The truth about you—or anyone?
If someone wanted to know the truth about you—the full truth—who would you trust to do it right? Someone who harbors frustration or ill-will towards you, or someone who sees your heart and knows you at your best?
While it’s true the latter person might, at times, paint an overly generous take, how would that compare with the darker bias that permeates the “shocking truth” about you revealed by your enemy?
Likewise, if someone wanted to know the truth about a controversial politician—let’s say, James Talarico, the newly elected Democratic Senator in Texas—who would you trust to share it?
Will you trust videos with titles like “Everything You Need to Know About James Talarico” or “Watch the Most BIZARRE and Extreme James Talarico Comments”? Or maybe, instead, will you take the time to hear some full remarks, like his victory speech late Tuesday night?
I don’t love Talarico’s views on everything. But I shared this speech with my boys election night and they were struck to hear a politician share something like this:
“Every single person bears the image of the sacred. Every single person is holy. Not just my neighbor who looks like me. Not just my neighbor who prays like me. Not just my neighbor who votes like me. I am called to love all of my neighbors the way I love myself.”
And this:
“My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas. And when I was little, he told me that we follow a barefoot rabbi who gave us two commandments. Love God and love neighbor. Because there is no love of God without love of neighbor….Hate is predictable. Hate is boring. Hate can’t lower our energy bills. Hate can’t teach a child to read. Hate can’t build a future.”
And this:
We are tired of being pitted against each other. We are tired of being told to hate each other….Politics as blood sport. Politics as trolling and owning. Politics as professional wrestling. It tears families apart. It ends friendships. And it leaves us all feeling terrible all the time. People across the political spectrum are hungry for a different kind of politics. Not a politics of hate. Not a politics of fear, not a politics of division, but a politics of love….the world changes person to person, neighbor to neighbor. In each moment when you choose to be kind, in each neighbor we choose to love, in each prayer that we say for someone who would not pray for us in return.
This leader is still wrong about important things. But my sons have gone their whole lives never hearing a political leader say anything like this about love or kindness.
Maybe listening to the unfiltered, unedited thoughts from someone should be a starting point before reaching any judgment. But how many people do that anymore?
The full truth about any faith
If someone wanted to know the full truth about a religion—Islam, Catholicism or even my own, you also might be inclined to check out a video like these: “The Truth About Islam,” “Why Islam Is a Threat to the West,” “The Muslim Invasion of America,” “Islam: Religion of Peace?” or “The Danger of Sharia Law.”
But here’s another idea: what if you reached out to your Muslim friend to ask him or her what their experience has been, what they believe and how they live?
Compared with the first approach—which can send you away with a superficial veneer of certitude, built around the darkest interpretations of the worst elements of a 1,400-year-old religion—a single conversation with a real Muslim may actually begin to provide some genuine insight into what the religion is really about.
Or you might even seek out materials from people sympathetic to a faith or trying to appreciate or understand it. For instance, my own faith created a 35-page guide to try and help members understand Islam better.
Try comparing this guide to any of the many “guides” other Christian groups have created about Latter-day Saints that presume to “educate” them about our faith.
For every person who’s watched a darkly-overtoned video about Joseph Smith full of wild accusations drawing on 200-year-old comments from his enemies, I dearly wish they’d spend an hour listening to someone who knows the same historical details, but loves the prophet Joseph. Truman Madsen is a great starting point, with his lectures on Joseph Smith, amazing book and messages about the restoration.
Listen to the lovers more than the haters
In America’s age of escalating grievance, it’s become common for journalists, commentators and even some scholars to assert that unless you’re willing to deeply critique an individual or institution, you’re not equipped to pursue the “full truth” of a matter.
But why? Have we become too quick to believe people who are critical of something are telling us the truth about it. It’s time to think more deeply about this.
While love can create a motivation to understand something deeply, contempt can create a motivation to find and emphasize its worst features. Clearly, both can introduce distortions. And neither automatically disqualifies someone from telling the truth.
But if we’re paying attention to this difference, we might make a difference choice in who and how to trust. Woodworth told me at the end of our interview that those seeking the truth about anything will learn more from people who are “willing to give their life for that thing,” and who consequently “take great care” in their work to represent the subject.
Maybe it really does take someone who loves deeply something to be able to share the full truth about that with the world?
When I want to learn the full truth about something or someone, I’m going to spend more time listening to those who love it than those who despise it. Because love doesn’t necessarily blind us to the truth. Sometimes, it’s what allows us to see things that contempt never could.