I learned the value of lying from church.
While in grade school, we were all encouraged to give to the church through Sunday school. I remember a little offering envelope with different boxes to check: Did you study your lesson? Read your Bible? I don’t remember what else we were being encouraged to do, I seem to recall there were about four things.
And, I remember our Sunday school teacher would find ways to reward those who were able to check “Yes” to all the questions.
I also remember being determined that I was not going to flunk church.
Read my bible everyday? You bet. Study my lesson? Of course! Can I have a donut now?
All these years, I thought it was just a misguided attempt to motivate 6th grade boys. I don’t think our Sunday school teacher intended to encouraged lying.
Now I find the International Mission Board (IMB) guidelines for Trustees also encourage lying. The message of the new policy on trustee relationships is disagree in private but agree in public; I don’t know what that is called elsewhere, but in Oklahoma we call it (saying something positive that you don’t really believe) a lie.
At least one trustee has stated, “If I am asked to speak about (something I disagree with) I will say “no comment.” I don’t think that meets the requirement of the new document: “no comment” becomes code for criticism. “No comment” certainly doesn’t meet the spirit of the new policies as explained in the BPNews article.
That leaves only two options, learn to love any and every action the IMB board approves. Or learn to lie.
[Addendum: If a IMB trustee speaks positively about some issues and then says "I can't comment" on other issues, the 'no comment' becomes de facto criticism. Speaking critically of board approved actions is against the rules. There is a third option: a 'no comment' reply to everything. That way we would not be able to guess which issues an individual trustee supported or didn't support. But it would leave the rest of us with nothing but officially sanctioned press releases.]
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