Can you keep a secret?

How many times every day is that question posed between people who already share a close relationship, but are on the threshold of entering into a virtual contract with the power to either ensure the bond shared forever, or to set in motion the disclosure that will often guarantee the death of a connection that was once assumed to be unbreakable?

Here’s a truth that crosses all cultures and centuries: people are held down and back by the secrets that they work tirelessly to protect. Images and reputations are fragile; repressed disclosures of things done in-the-past and out-of-view have the power to shatter illusions once created and now maintained to gain status and power.

In today’s world, non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are the attempt to suppress the exposure of truths that, if widely known, would negate the credibility of elite poseurs whose fitness for leadership would be immediately renounced.

Foreign to societies harshly controlled by dictatorial governments, hidden cameras and clandestine recordings have become the fodder for “breaking news” and daily headlines in free societies. It was 51 years ago in America when the Watergate scandal broke the Nixon presidency and conditioned that and future generations to expect whistleblowers who would trumpet the end of high-flying celebrities and send them into exile.

In America, the experiment that created a free republic was designed to include a free press tasked with finding and reporting the story-behind-the-story. Edmund Burke called the press “the Fourth Estate” – alongside Congress, Courts and Administrative. The truth-tellers had a mission described by Jesus: “No one lights a lamp and hides it in a clay jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, they put it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light.  For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open” (Luke 8:16-17).

Life and order need leaders, and the expectations rightly ascribed to those in hierarchy are too often compromised. Jesus saw the shortfall and called it out: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.  There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known.  What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs” (Luke 12:1-3).

As the Apostles set in motion the creation of spiritual communities that would invite the followers of Jesus into life-giving networks whose missional commitments would make their efforts together world-changing, they realized the crucial necessity to make the Kingdom’s leaders credible to the core. As Paul wrote to one of his protégés whom he had groomed for godly leadership: “Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:15-16).

As America braces for what could be a brutal political season, the daily discovery of secrets formerly shielded and now headlined will be commonplace. Shame has disappeared; denials will attempt to defuse the testimonies offered under oath that will ultimately taint the aura of carefully crafted candidates whose former life truths will force reevaluation of electability.

Here’s my take-away: live above reproach, and the fear of discovery will never take you out of contention for God’s best. It’s all coming out, in the end. I’m committed to living with the blinds open.