The Often Thankless Job of Pursuing the Truth

Wow! I just received three emails this afternoon that were so hot that they almost made my computer steam. Let me give you some background as to why they were sent to me.

I received a copy of a letter earlier this week from an Asian country which I had the foresight to have verified by some of our partners who live in the same country. After working in this line of ministry for almost a decade, I have learned not to take every report of persecution with the same degree of seriousness, especially those that come from people I do not know and which make mention of the need for funds.

Without going into details, our partners replied saying that there were some inconsistencies and factual errors in the letter as they were quite aware of the situation and were, in fact, involved with the individual who wrote the letter.

As is incumbent on me as CEO of The Voice of the Martyrs, I replied to the person who had sent me the letter initially, informing her of the facts as our partners had reported them. This is part of my job; to insure that the truth is told about the persecution of Christians around the world.

Well, my comments obviously got back to the letter writer and some of his friends, as they proceeded to lambaste me in their emails this afternoon, accusing me of not knowing what I was talking about, of criticizing and being disrespectful of a dear brother in his time of need. One went so far as to accuse me of being a Gnostic. Why, I am not sure or how that was relevant; it must be a favorite accusation of his towards anyone he disagrees with. I started a response to these three individuals and then decided against it. I doubt that it would have any positive effects. As one old saying goes, you can be as white as a dove but some people are so colourblind that they will still shot you for being a crow.

There are times when the pursuit of the truth is a thankless job. But I will not be intimidated by those who think that they can bully me into not doing my God-given job of verifying and disseminating facts. The cause of defending the persecuted is not aided by blind loyalty or naïveté.