Faces on Faith: Let us renew our commitment to honesty
As it is now officially summer, we are also now officially into “Summer Blockbuster Movie Season.” Or at least, I guess, “Hoped for Summer Blockbuster Movie Season” on the part of the studios who release those films.
The first “hoped for” blockbuster movie this summer was actually released a few weeks ago — “Disclosure Day,” a film directed by the legendary Steven Spielberg about an effort to steal and release to the world information proving the existence of extraterrestrial life from a secret military industrial agency trying to prevent it.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, “Toy Story 5” debuted, which will be followed later this summer by “hoped for” blockbusters featuring Supergirl, Spiderman, and the renowned director Christopher Nolan’s take on the literary classic “The Odyssey.”
But in the midst of all those “hoped for” blockbusters, another film is being released this summer — one which hasn’t received anywhere near the same level of publicity as those other films, one which has been specifically timed to make its premiere on July 3 — the day before the official beginning of our nation’s 250th birthday celebration.
It is a film titled “Young Washington.” As in George Washington, often referred to as the “Father” of this country. But rather than focus on the years of Washington’s presidency, “Young Washington” is set over a 12-year period from his adolescence through the time when he played a pivotal role as a British soldier in the French and Indian war. According to historians, it was a time of significant struggle and mistakes for Washington, but also one they believe significantly contributed to his later successes, as well as his enduring — though certainly not flawless — reputation for a commitment to honesty.
It was a commitment to honesty that Washington most famously reminded our nation it must also be dedicated to in his farewell address at the end of his presidency — an address in which he proclaimed: “I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.”
Throughout that address, Washington made explicit and implicit connections between moral character, exemplified by honesty, and the ideals of justice, unity and community. He insisted that the health and continuing existence of our nation depended upon that commitment to honesty.
And while again, that period of struggle and errors during his adolescence and early adulthood certainly contributed to Washington’s commitment to honesty, historians also suggest it was even more influenced by Washington’s faith. While Washington was quite clear that he wanted nothing to do with the establishment of a national religion, he was also known as a devout Episcopalian and frequent Bible reader — a Bible, and the Jewish and Christian traditions it informs — which calls us to that same commitment to honesty — to speaking truthfully, rejecting falsehoods, and expecting the same from each other and our leaders. All for the sake of what Washington reminded us in his farewell address was so vital to our nation’s health and continued existence — justice, unit and community.
In this time in our nation’s history, however, that commitment to honesty may be harder to realize than ever. Through the proliferation of social media, and the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) in our lives and our nation, we are now more and more able to create more and more text, video, photographic and audio content which is intentionally meant to spread falsehood, misinformation and deception.
And don’t get me wrong. I fully recognize the blessings that AI has brought with it, such as the capacity to process enormous amounts of data in a split second, improve disease diagnosis and enhance scientific innovation. However, AI is different in that experts agree it becomes more capable and sophisticated at faster rates than previous technological breakthroughs, making, as the renowned leader in the field of digital forensics, Hany Farid of Cal Berkeley lamented recently, it harder and harder to detect “deepfakes,” highly accurate but false images of people and events; harder and harder to detect text, video, photographic and audio falsehoods meant to deceive and manipulate us socially, politically and emotionally.
Which brings us back to honesty. Because as Pope Leo XIV wisely pointed out in his recent encyclical, AI, like all technological tools and innovations, is not, and cannot be, neutral, because we are not neutral. “Every technical tool,” the Pope writes, “embodies choices and priorities through what it emphasizes and ignores.”
As we arrive at the official beginning of our nation’s 250th birthday celebration then, what will we choose as a nation? Will we choose the commitment to honesty Washington’s faith compelled him to call on us to make an indispensable bedrock for the sake of our nation’s health and continued existence — an honesty which he understood God demands from us — or the falsehoods, untruths, deception and manipulation that our technological tools give us the capacity to engage in more and more?
Let us honor and celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday by renewing our commitment to that honesty. Because as Washington knew, and as God long ago proclaimed, that is what good and just — morally and ethically strong — people and nations do.
The Rev. Dr. Mark Boyea is senior minister at the Sanibel Congregational United Church of Christ.