Once a year I have the honor of delivering a “vision” speech at Saint Benedict Hall’s Back to School Parent Night. This year I spoke about the biblical concept of parrhesia —boldness or bold speech. or proclamation.
We live in a culture that imagines itself very parrhesia-ful, very proud and bold. And yet, we aren’t. All of our ostensible boldness and loud proclamation is a kind of veil drawn across the surface of an ever-deepening state of shame and panic. Foucault regards parrhesia as costly speech, a truthfulness that risks the life of the speaker. Contemporary American rhetoric is not parrhesia, for we want the costly speech but not the actual paying of the cost. We like the feeling of speaking truth to Power, but then are surprised when those in power prove just how powerful they are.
Gospel parrhesia, true parrhesia, on the other hand is not merely willing to pay the cost, but to a degree unsurprised when that bill arrives. As Peter Leithart said once to a group of us, “Parrhesia is the virtue of martyrs.”
Additionally, Gospel parrhesia not only pays the cost but does so joyfully and charitably. God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9.7), the true parrhesiastes gives the gift of their parrhesia cheerfully. We often think that “being bold” and “proclaiming the truth” excuses us from civility, charity, and neighborliness. We are dead wrong. God didn’t tell us to not have enemies (in this neoliberal sort of naivete) but He did tell us that we have to love our enemies. From my notes from the speech:
We are bold about our enemies, are we as bold at loving them? To the degree that that answer is no, we fall short of parrhesia, and the truth.
We aim to form parrhesiastes, men and women who boldly speak the truth, but we want real parrhesiastes, not mere activists or political hacks.
The question I pose to us tonight as we set our faces into the year ahead: “Do we love the truth with all the bright boldness of a lover, and do we love those from whom we suffer the cost of that love of truth?”
More simply, stated as an injunction, “Speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4.15).
Be bold.