|
Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for an accusation against this man.” But they were insistent and said, “He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.”
–– Luke 23:4-5
In John Bunyan’s classic 17th Century Christian allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress, there is a character whose full attention is focused on the dirt and debris covering the floor beneath him which he is attacking with a sort of broom or rake, a muck rake. His rapt attention to the obviously futile effort of sweeping it all up prevents him from seeing or paying heed to the One who is over his head and holding a celestial crown offered as a trade for the muck rake. Bunyan observes in this character that –– heaven is but as a fable to some, and that things here are counted the only things substantial. Now, whereas you were also shown that the man could look no way but downwards, it is to let you know that earthly things, when they are with power upon men’s minds, quite carry their hearts away from God.” The narrative seeks to expose the despairing futility of living in this troubled world without the heaven borne resources of redemptive faith and hope.
In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt borrowed the image for a rhetorical flourish during a speech in which he implied that investigative journalists were so focused on the negative that they could not see the positive; that so attuned to the evils of society, they neglected to see the good. Many saw in his reproach a petulance concerning criticism about his own job performance more than a concern for the common good. Yet, with the speech a new term was coined to refer to those who exposed injustice and held the powerful to account –– Muckrakers. It was intended as a pejorative but came to symbolize the important work of speaking truth to power and holding the powerful to account. The writings and articles of Upton Sinclair, Ida B. Wells, along with earlier writers like Frederick Douglass or the abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy, exposed society’s injustices, bringing these iniquities into attention, much to the chagrin of those exposed. While there is plenteous anecdotal evidence of libel and defamation in reporting, it is substantially eclipsed by the public good achieved in the pursuit of truth and the exposure of injustice.
The aggrieved saw the muckrakers as a menace, stirring up public sentiments and obsessing over the dirt and dust that had been swept under the carpet, and yet there are so many instances where the articulation of truths, no matter how uncomfortable, have carried on the important work of the prophets in speaking truth to power. Couldn’t Amos be included in the pantheon of muckrakers for exposing the injustices of those in power? “For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins — you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate. Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an evil time.”
The case against Jesus, prosecuted by religious authorities, focused on labeling him as a sort of muckraker –– “Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, I find no basis for an accusation against this man.’ But they were insistent and said, ‘He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.” In the halls of power, there is a strong urge to live as though truth is only to be acknowledged when it is convenient. Inconvenient truths must be either invalidated or buried. It was Caiaphas, the high priest that year, who reasoned –– “It is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.”
Yet, let us remember that while those who sought to hide the truth by crucifying our Lord are long gone, but Jesus lives. They thought they could hold onto power by burying the truth, but the truth persists while their power is only seen in the ruins we tour or unearthed by the work of the archaeologist’s spade. What could that tell us about the role of the church in society?
Living in the age of misinformation, perhaps the muckraker’s work is a form of ministry, sifting through the dirt to reveal the truth. For when the dust settles, it is the light of Christ’s truth that sets us free.
| 
