Truth, Goodness, Beauty

Trinity Term 2025

Revd Dr Michael Lloyd writes:

I would like to share three stories with you, each of which tells us something about ourselves, our society, and our longings.

Story 1 (Truth)

First, the Rhodes Must Fall movement. Cecil Rhodes had really troubling connections to colonialism and racism, and those who formed the Rhodes Must Fall movement believed that we should not be celebrating such people. They therefore wanted statues of Rhodes in Cape Town and Oxford taken down. The common argument in response was: ‘We must remember that they were people of their time. We mustn’t judge them by the standards of our time, but understand them in the context of their own time.’ In other words, truth is relative. It all depends on the context. And the Rhodes Must Fall movement said, No! It does not all depend on the context. Racism is wrong now and it was wrong then. Slavery is wrong now and it was wrong then. Any slave at the time knew that slavery was wrong.

So what the Rhodes Must Fall movement tells us, I believe, is that people are pushing back against relativism: people are crying out for truth.

Story 2 (Goodness)

The second story is told by the ethicist, James Mumford (*), who is currently staying at Wycliffe as part of his Study Leave. In an article in 2022, he tells the story of his time in a psychiatric hospital, and taking part in what is called a Values Clarification Exercise. He writes:

Presented with the handout listing various values, we’ve been asked to circle the ones that resonate with us. Next, the psychologist, with a flourish, ventures an observation. Each of us, he says, has different values. What’s more, we often disagree about our values. “So,” he concludes, “values are subjective.” And our recovery … hinges upon our willingness to choose our own values.    

He then comments on this experience:

Harmless, surely? Who would deny that it’s vital that my   values be ones I’ve properly signed up for rather than had simply foisted upon me — by my parents, my teachers, my culture? But this truism — that I will more likely be able to live out a set of values if I have consciously adopted them — doesn’t exhaust the sense of what’s being said. … When he claims that “values are subjective,” he is painting a picture of the world according to which the only values that exist are ones we have created. To say values are subjective is to say there is nothing independent of our own minds that answers to our talk of right and wrong. It is to say that our ethical beliefs do not track a reality which is “there anyway.” 

Mumford reports that this session left him ‘feeling more depressed and deeply disoriented.’ So, eventually, he put his hand up and said …

The care I have received in this hospital is superb. The support, the understanding, the empathy. I am treated by your team as if I have irreplaceable value. When I am feeling worthless, you don’t act as if values are subjective. You don’t reply, ‘Yes. You’re right. If you feel worthless, you are worthless!’ No, you and your team always speak and act in ways that imply fundamental disagreement with my estimation of myself. Valuing my worth, you betray your proclaimed belief in the subjectivity of all values. You embrace truths far beyond any of our mere preferences.

People are crying out for goodness. They are crying out for our worth to be seen as real and objective and given and grounded – and to be respected as such.

Story 3 (Beauty)

During the horrendous siege of Leningrad in 1942, there was deep hunger and starvation and instances of cannibalism. In the midst of this horror, the composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, was writing his seventh symphony. When it was finished, there was a strong desire to perform it in Leningrad. The musicians were so weak from hunger that three of them died of starvation during rehearsals. It was eventually performed and broadcast by loudspeakers to the German army outside the city. At its conclusion, it received an hour-long ovation from its hungry and exhausted listeners, who were profoundly grateful to hear their suffering expressed and sublimated into a work of savage beauty.

The arts are not a luxury – they are a necessity. People are crying out for beauty.

Fostering a new Renaissance

That is why Wycliffe has set itself the ambition of fostering a new Renaissance of Christian scholarship, leadership and culture – because scholarship is really about truth, leadership is really about goodness, and culture is really about beauty. And we believe that these are not arbitrary and subjective matters of preference, because they are grounded in an infinite and eternal Person, who is Truth, Goodness and Beauty.