Before you begin reading, you need to know that this is a continuation of the past two weeks' posts. If you haven't read those posts, you'll want to take the time to do that before reading this post.
I haven't read the book on which the movie Captain Phillips was based--it is called A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea--but if the movie follows the book and the actual events of that day then Captain Richard Phillips is a very brave man. Throughout the ordeal he did what he felt was right to keep his crew safe as well as trying to save his own life as well. Like I mentioned before, his story is one that made me think about what I would have done and about whether or not there is a moment when the "rules" or "principles" we generally live by break down, causing us to go deeper or rather behind those principles to actually defy the principle in order to fulfill the greater end behind the principle. This week I'm going to spend time with the fact that in the midst of this dire situation Captain Phillips lied to the pirates. Is that okay?
In the movie, when the heavily armed Somali pirates board the ship and make it to the bridge where the captain and a couple of other crew members are, the pirates ask Captain Phillips, "Where is the rest of your crew?" Captain Phillips, who had told the crew exactly where to hide, responded, "I don't know." He lied! The Scriptures say, "The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful" (Proverbs 12:22). They also say, "No one who practices deceit will dwell in [God's] house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in [God's] presence" (Psalm 107:7). These are just two of many examples. The Scriptures reveal to us that God doesn't like it when we lie. Because of this we have rightly formulated the principle that instructs: do not lie.
So our principle says "do not lie," but is it ever okay to lie? A legalist or immature Christian (who are often legalists) would say, "No. You can never lie." They are just trying to be obedient and faithful, but they are probably also wrong. Thankfully not everyone is so attached to their principles. After all, every person in Europe that hid Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust lied. "Are there any Jews in your house?" the SS asked them. "No Jews here," they said. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, when criticized by fellow Christians for being willing to deceive the Nazis in order to work against them, once wrote of the following example in an essay called "What Does It Mean to Tell the Truth?"
Bonhoeffer gave the example of a little girl whose teacher stands her in front of the class and asks her, "Is your father a drunkard?" The little girl, whose father is definitely an alcoholic, answers, "No." Bonhoeffer says, "Of course, one could call the child's answer a lie; all the same, this lie contains more truth--i.e., it corresponds more closely to the truth--than if the child had revealed the father's weakness before the class." About this example Eric Metaxas writes, "One cannot demand 'the truth' at any cost, and for this girl to admit in front of the class that her father is a drunkard is to dishonor him. How one tells the truth depends on circumstances." This doesn't mean that Bonhoeffer didn't think there was any such thing as objective, absolute truth. What it does mean is that sometimes the reason behind a principle is more important than the principle itself.
Although this is not the official definition, the way I define a "legalist" is someone who cares more about the rules than about the reason those rules exist. A few biblical examples would be the Levite and priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan. They cared more about following the purity codes, which were meant to honor God, than they did about helping the dying man, which would have honored God even more. Jesus didn't get along well with legalists. Again and again he showed that he cared more about the "spirit" of the law (reason it exists) than about the "letter" of the law. The reason behind the principle "do not lie" is that God (who is The Truth) would be honored and others would be treated well. There may be times, however, when lying would actually honor God more and treat others better than telling the truth. In other words, it may not be factual but it would be True in the sense of doing God's will. The little girl in Bonhoeffer's example honored her father (and the rest of her family) and treated him better than she would have by telling the class that he was a drunk. There was absolutely nothing to be gained by telling the truth in that situation. How would that have honored God? The teacher obviously had cruel motives. Telling the truth would have only played into the teacher's (and maybe the class's) cruel intentions.
When the pirates asked Captain Phillips where his crew was, had he been immature and/or a legalist (or a traitor) he would have said, "They are in the engine room with the lights turned off hiding in the back." Would turning your defenseless (why the cargo ship didn't have any form of security other than water hoses I don't know) crew over to armed, desperate, drugged up, pirates honor God and treat others well? Telling the truth would technically follow the principle, but it would also violate the reason for the principle. While the pirates may have been Captain Phillips's "neighbors," so were his crew. When he had to make a choice between his neighbors with AK-47's pointed at his head trying to steal his employer's cargo and his nieghbors who were his own unarmed and law-abiding crew, he chose his crew. He felt it honored God and treated others better by protecting the unarmed innocent rather than telling the truth to armed criminals. Isn't lying a sin? Well, maybe lying is only sometimes a sin. Maybe it is less the action itself and more the intent behind it that determines whether or not something is a sin.
999 out of 1000 times telling the truth is the right, God-honoring, neighbor-loving thing to do. However, the unwise, the immature, and the legalistic are either unwilling or incapable of discerning the righteous thing to do in that other one time. When life offers us easy, clear-cut, black-and-white, choices to make, following our principles makes complete sense. Sometimes, though, we face things that are hard, blurry, and gray. It is then that we have to go deeper, down to the reason beneath the principle, which may actually help us to do the right thing by not following the principle that one time.
Captain Phillips lied. By lying he did the right thing. And to the glory of God and out of love for my neighbor I would have lied too.
So if lying is usually the wrong thing to do but occasionally the right thing to do, is it the same when it comes to violence as well? Is violence always a sin or is it on very rare occasions the God-honoring, neighbor-loving thing to do? I'll get into that next week.
