THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH 018
There are moments in history when the ground shifts and the men in charge suddenly realize the game is over. Two thousand years ago the religious establishment felt that shift under their feet…the crowds were gathering and the currents were changing. They knew the architecture of their power — the rituals, the statutes, the polite hypocrisies — could not survive the kind of claim Jesus the Christ made. He revealed a kingdom that INVERTED THEIR SYSTEM, exposed the rot, the whitewashed corpses, and demanded a new way of life: love through service instead of self-preservation.
So they killed him.
Fast-forward to our day. Someone shows up on campus with the SAME AUDACITY: he challenges the comfortable narratives, pulls young people toward an old, INCONVENIENT MORAL ARCHITECTURE and he names obligations people would rather dodge.
Charlie drew the crowds and made the ruling opinion uncomfortable - completely unpalatable, actually.
Charlie became a living irritant — like alcohol poured on the exposed nerves of a wounded society.
When a culture depends on its own comforts and definitions, someone who refuses to consent to those comforts looks like an EXISTENTIAL THREAT. When a ruling class recognizes a threat, their first instinct is not to listen; it is to silence.
So they killed him.
That is the hard, INCONVENIENT TRUTH: truth provokes, and provocation reveals what has been held together by convenience rather than conviction. It was true in Jerusalem and it is just as true on our campuses and in the epidemic of the broken nuclear family. Whether you call the opponents “Pharisees” or “the modern ruling class,” the dynamic is the same: power feels itself in danger and lashes out.
That lash can be words and smear or a campaign to cancel or another dead prophet.
Whatever the form, it is the same pattern — the frightened guardians who will do almost anything to keep the status quo intact.
But here is the other INCONVENIENT TRUTH: martyrdom - real or rhetorical - does not vindicate violence. The cross was not a strategy for revenge. It was the revelation of a LOVE SO COSTLY it makes mockery and murder taste like defeat. If someone becomes a lightning rod for truth, our response must never be to wish harm on another human being or to cheer violence when it happens. We resist the impulse to return hatred for hatred. We refuse the low and easy victory of rejoicing at destruction.
We stand where truth calls us to stand: humble, courageous, and unsparing with ourselves. We do not run because truth is inconvenient. We do not hide our convictions because they bruise the comfortable. We speak boldly, but we love fiercely - and we refuse to be formed by the appetite to wound.
Reflection:
1. Where are you speaking truth timidly because you fear the reaction? Where are you shirking because it’s easier?
2. When has truth exposed your own “comfortable” corners - and what did you do when the nerve was touched?
3. How can you be more formative (not performative) - willing to be counted for something while refusing to celebrate another’s fall?
Homework: Identify one place this week where your conviction will cost you comfort. Say the hard word kindly, and then do the hard work that follows. Practice firmness without relish.