John Trapp-Unity without verity is no better than conspiracy for his time and for my time quotable prose

John Trapp was known for his quotable prose and my personal favorite is “Unity without verity is no better than conspiracy”. He was an English Anglican bible commentator who has lived an interesting life.

Verity as defined in the dictionary is the quality or condition of being true, factual, or real. The Latin word for verity is verus. The word also means that it is a fact that has been verified.

Just as powerful and as important as the word verity is the word unity. Unity is the state of being one or the quality of being in accord or harmony.

John Trapp was truly remarkable to have chosen such powerful words. Unity without verity is no better than conspiracy must have been suitable and effective during the 16th century. It was probably very much of use during the English civil war when he sided with parliament and got arrested. The people of his time need to be reminded of this.

Today, there are no civil war, no world war, not even cold war, and here in my beloved country; there is definitely no immense persecution to the faithful. Yet those words “Unity without verity is no better than conspiracy” beyond doubt is still very much true and fitting for my generation and the next generation to value and consider.

In my time, we only worry about our job, our salaries, our expenses, our health, our families, and even worry less about our community, or much lesser about our country. Nonetheless, we seek unity and oneness with everyone, that we oftentimes disregard verity. We are after being one with our colleagues just to gain their approval. We wanted to be in harmony with them just to belong. We please them and satisfy them, just to be in agreement with them and eventually get their support. We do these, all of these, to fit in and to be accepted. We do these, even if we close our eyes to the truth. We ignore the truth, and we pay no attention to the people we may hurt. What a saddening truth. What a depressing thought. What a conspiracy.

Conspiracy, collusion, and or plot, all refer to surreptitious or covert schemes to accomplish some end, most often an evil one. Conspiracy is to be in agreement with falsehood. Conspiracy is accepting deceit without thought. Conspiracy is concurring with lies without reflection.

My heart is in pain to have realized that my generation and the people I know have least respect on verity. It is hard to admit that being silent to issues is also the same as not telling the truth. Time and again we know the truth, we know the whole story, we know what really happens, we know the facts, we know the details, but we kept silent, we keep it to ourselves, we hide it, we try to convince ourselves that it is for the best, but, it is really for the best?