…truth is holy. It is one of God’s fundamental rules for human community. Without truth the community will fall into chaos and hell, into civil war and international wars. It is only on the basis of unconditional truth, of truth stemming from the divine, that there is a true unity, just as it is only on this basis that there is actual justice; without it there is only coercion and violence. It is only on this basis that there is faithfulness; without it souls decay and communities erode from within. But this truth comes only from God, the one holy God. Besides possessing the holy right to respect, life, and property, each person also possesses the right to truth. Holy is his honor, his worth, his good name, but also his manner, his particular way. If you do not give him this right, you are violating the respect that under God you owe him. If you take something from him, you are a thief. If you slander him, you are a murderer. Guard your tongue and your pen from that. Give him the right of truth and thereby give glory to God….
We should not only avoid witnessing against the truth; we must witness for the truth. And not just in person-to-person relations, but also in public life: in politics, in culture, in religion, in the family, in the nation, in the realm of Christendom, in the family of mankind, in the Kingdom of God. We must engage the battle for truth. We must struggle for ever more truth. We must oppose all the powers of falsehood. We must be witnesses to truth. That means martyrdom. In particular, it means willingness to submit to attack, persecution, misunderstanding and suffering of all kinds, and in some cases even to death itself for the sake of truth. For one must serve truth totally. One cannot be truthful in private life and deceitful in public life. Truth is a whole. We are duty-bound to serve the whole. Truth binds us to God, for truth is God.
Leonhard Ragatz in Signs of the Kingdom: A Ragatz Reader, 110-11 (1943)