True lies
Lesser evils and greater goods, and the moral dilemma of difficult decisions.
Jesus said to him [Thomas], “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
– John 14: 6a
My parents told me this story.
It is 1943 in Holland during the height of the Nazi occupation of that country. Everywhere Jews are rounded up for shipping to concentration camps. Able-bodied Dutch men are required to report for labour duty in German war factories or face dire consequences. Jews and young men go “underground” to hide from death or Nazi collaboration. Many ordinary Dutch citizens create hideaways in their homes and barns to aid them, at great personal peril.
German patrols march through streets to search out those who have gone underground and to punish those who aid them. But not all of the soldiers on these patrols are Nazi ideologues. Many are just ordinary German boys, conscripted to serve a cause in which they only half-heartedly believe. They are not always zealous in their search, but they must at least appear to do their duty.
There is a knock on the door. Mrs. Jansen, the mother of a big Dutch family, now enlarged by a Jewish couple and a young Dutch carpenter hiding in a rug-covered underground vegetable cellar, peers through a crack in the door. A Nazi patrol! The knock is repeated, this time with a fist. Gingerly she opens the door a crack.
Moment of truth
“Are you hiding any Jews or Dutch deserters?” barks the patrol leader in broken Dutch.
And now Mrs. Jansen is faced with a quandary. She is an honest, God-fearing Christian and she knows the commandments. Doesn’t the Bible clearly condemn lying? But, if she tells the truth and says, “Ja, Herr Commandant, we are hiding a Jewish couple and our neighbour’s son, Henk, in our cellar,” then who knows what will happen to those people? She will be partially responsible for whatever nastiness or horror will befall them, possibly death itself. She also knows the second great commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself.” So Mrs. Jansen makes a choice. She decides to lie.
“Nee, Commandant, we are hiding no one. We have enough trouble feeding our own family let alone filling the mouths of Jews and lay-about young men.”
The commandant shrugs, looks back towards his three fellow patrollers and motions them to move on. It’s almost lunchtime and he is in no mood for delaying by turning yet another house upside-down and inside-out. The patrol turns away and marches off down the street. Mrs. Jansen closes her door with a sigh of relief, but breathes a silent prayer, “Dear God, forgive me for lying, but sometimes it’s hard to obey all your commandments.” Later, that evening, as she relates her experience to her husband, he reassures her, “Ja, lieve kindt, (dear one) sometimes in this broken, sinful world we have to choose between the lesser of two evils.”
What do you think? Do you think Mr. Jansen was right? Do we sometimes have to choose between the lesser of two evils?
I suggest setting up this as a question of the “lesser of two evils” is in fact mistaken. The issue of not telling the truth is framed in the Decalogue as “bearing false witness” against a neighbour. The question, “are you hiding any Jews or Dutch deserters” was at its heart such a false witness. In the context the question means, “are you hiding the scum of humanity (Jews) and people who should be serving the Führer (Dutch deserters), both of who are worthy of death.” To which the answer is, “No.” To answer “Yes” would have been a lie because it would have born false witness against these neighbours, created in the image of God, worthy of our love and protection.
I think Brian points to the true biblical concept here, which underlies the fidelity of the words and actions of Rahab in the parallel situation recorded for us in Joshua chapter 2, and for which she is commended in the New Testament (James 2:25 & Hebrews 11:31)