Recent headlines have caused a storm of social conflict over the last month, and competing truth claims are raised to support various positions.  We have Michael Brown’s shooting in Ferguson, TV star Lena Dunham’s story of sexual assault during her college years in her book, the UVa rape story of a Greek frat house sexually assaulting a young woman as part of initiation.   An important biblical truth is found in Proverbs 18:17:

The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

Older Bereans may recall the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings–no case better illustrates the proverb.  When I listened to Anita Hill I totally believed her, but when Clarence Thomas took the stand, I was outraged at her lies.  Then she would return and I found her credible, and Mr. Thomas was the problem.  Back and forth it went.   Many of the issues raised in that case were a classic he said/she said, making initial biases hard to overcome.  Yet there is a truth in every story, however hard it is to find.  We cannot, like Pontius Pilate, say “what is truth.”

In each of these current cases, the initial narrative has come out as grossly incomplete, and leading to very harmful social conclusions.   What’s disturbing is that contrary evidence has not necessarily stopped the propagation of the narrative:  certainly in the Michael Brown case, the idea of a passive Mr. Brown having hands up saying don’t shoot doesn’t fit the forensic evidence or testimony of witnesses.  Even witnesses supporting the idea he was trying to surrender concede he was moving towards the officer.  As the NY Times argues, we don’t really know how aggressively Mr. Brown was heading toward the officer, as there are conflicting testimonies, but here are facts few would dispute:

Of the two crucial events during the roughly 90 seconds in which Officer Wilson stopped Mr. Brown and shot him, one is less disputed. Officer Wilson testified, and both bruises and DNA evidence indicate, that Mr. Brown struck him and tried to wrest his gun away early in their encounter. Two shots were fired, and there is general agreement that Mr. Brown, wounded slightly, fled. The officer gave chase on foot, gun drawn. Then Mr. Brown suddenly turned and began moving back toward Officer Wilson.

What happened next cannot be resolved by analysis of the physical evidence, and the starkly contrasting accounts only underscore the unreliability of memory and perceptions. On the ground, blood splotches indicate that Mr. Brown was shot as he approached Officer Wilson, but kept moving until another volley killed him as he bent forward.

As we’ve argued previously, Mr. Brown’s death is clearly a tragedy.  But do the facts suggest that if you are an African-American male, you are at risk of being shot by police  because your life doesn’t matter?  That if confronted by police for something, trying to surrender won’t help, you’ll still be shot?  There is clearly a context in this case, and it goes both ways:  African-American male’s experiences with police are no doubt much worse than a comparable white, but likewise Officer Wilson had a context in that situation prior to the fatal shooting–and it was based on a violent physical confrontation such that it does not seem unreasonable for him to believe his life was in danger when Mr. Brown moved back toward him.  When we embrace only facts that are consistent with our prior beliefs and understanding, while rejecting those that are inconsistent without testing them, are we committed to the truth?   This is a question for all of us; we’re all prone to confirmation bias.

Yet there is a sad history of inflammatory stories that upon closer scrutiny fall apart.  Mr. Sharpton’s initial claim to fame was peddling a story of a young black female (Tawana Brawley) sexually abused by NYPD cops; the story later was judged by a grand jury to be a fabrication, but the social conflict couldn’t be put back in a bottle.  The more recent Duke lacrosse rape case comes to mind; the quick rush to judgment because we know it must be true.  Ms. Dunham may have indeed been sexually assaulted–but why would she ID “the campus conservative” named Barry?  Only one possible person could fit that bill and he has had significant anguish in the last six weeks; now the publisher says “Barry” was a pseudonym.  The UVa story falling apart is perhaps the most strange–the author admitted to searching out to find a school that might fit her preconceived narrative.  As the WSJ relates,

The larger problem, however, is that Ms. Erderly was, by her own admission, looking for a story to fit a pre-existing narrative—in this case, the supposed epidemic of sexual assault at elite universities, along with the presumed indifference of those schools to the problem. As the Washington Post noted in an admiring profile of Ms. Erdely, she interviewed students at several elite universities before alighting on UVA, “a public school, Southern and genteel.”

Are we really surprised she didn’t do due diligence to check her story?   Yet many uncritically believed her, since, as one student relates in the aftermath of the story falling apart:

I am drained. I am confused. But I keep returning to one question. If everyone here believed Jackie’s story until yesterday — a story in which she is violently raped by seven men at a fraternity house as part of a planned initiation ritual — should we not still be concerned?  There was something in that story which stuck. And that means something.  The University of Virginia — like most American universities — has a problem with rape. Current estimates, cited earlier this year by Vice President Joe Biden, hold that one in five women will be sexually assaulted while in college.

In other words, because I’ve been told that men are likely to do this, don’t we have a problem even if we don’t have a problem?  Isn’t the fact that we believe it could be true illustrative that there’s enough smoke there may be fire?  I think that is a fair point.  Yet it could also mean something else:  Maybe the prior beliefs of what everyone knows to be true are not true?  Certainly VP Biden’s statistic is less compelling when subjected to scrutiny.  One sexual assault is too many, so its important not to get bogged down in arguing the number.  Yet a biblical worldview helps us understand two things:  some women will lie about rape (e.g., Potiphar’s wife), and some males will rape females (e.g., Dinah and Tamar).  Thus it seems prudent to follow the Proverb above; we should not assume  a claim is true or false, but rather support efforts to find truth and justice.

Unfortunately some suggest that even if the story doesn’t fit the facts, we should still push the narrative–because we “know” the underlying narrative is true.  Plato’s “Nobel Lie” is unfortunately alive and well.  Berean’s would be well served to not let our own prior beliefs blind us to other perspectives, and we should surely know that there is always another side of the story.