Learning Real History — the good, the bad and the ugly

Commentary in the Orlando Sentinel: 

December 17, 2025 

The phrase “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” isn’t just the title of a popular movie released in 1966 starring Clint Eastwood. It’s a description of what all history books must include if they’re to provide real history and not become mere tools of propaganda.

In courts of law, we expect witnesses to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” — because guilt can be reliably determined only in a context of truth-telling.

Similarly, history writers should be expected to demonstrate candor in their reporting — because effective decision-making in the present is, to a great degree, predicated on having accurate understandings of the past. We must build on what our forebears got right, and we must seek to correct —  and avoid repeating — what they got wrong.

The visionaries who created the social/governmental experiment we call the United States of America recognized that despite the grand concepts they put forward, their experiment would perpetually be a work in progress. Even our constitution — which was a monumental achievement — provided only a foundation upon which we could “form a more perfect union.”

I understand (though I disagree with) the current push to whitewash those parts of our national history that make us uncomfortable because they highlight failures — failures that continue to adversely affect society and damage our nation’s image both in the eyes of our own people and in the eyes of onlooking nations.

But we won’t achieve a more perfect union by simply denying or ignoring or trying to hide the blemishes on our national record. Moreover, candor about less-than-savory actions of the past doesn’t negate those parts of our history that deserve to be celebrated wholeheartedly.

Understandably, we like to put our best face forward. We like to look as good as possible, whether as individuals or collectively, and whether dealing with actions of the present or the past. It’s never easy to say, “We got that wrong.”

Granted the desire to enhance our image and avoid unpleasant realities of the past, there’s a huge temptation to bury historical facts that are uncomfortable and inconvenient to current vested interests. But denying, embellishing and oversimplifying work against us in the long run. Honesty is the best policy. Even in reporting history.

Many who are most committed to whitewashing the past are also outspoken proponents of the Bible and the role they say the Bible has played and should play in shaping U.S. society. Ironically, the Bible is one of the most striking examples of good-bad-and-ugly history reporting, even when telling the stories of its greatest heroes.

For example, grandfather Abraham, son Isaac and grandson Jacob — the progenitors and heroes of Jewish faith and culture — all had difficulty telling the truth when the truth appeared to be potentially disadvantageous.

Many today might suggest burying such stories. What good can be achieved by showcasing the negatives. But that wasn’t the approach of the Bible’s writers. Why? Because such stories would help the Bible’s readers develop a more balanced view of life, I suggest.

Ancient Israel’s most revered king, David, was called “a man after God’s own heart.” Whitewashers would choose to stop with that. But the Bible’s writers go on to describe David’s illicit sexual relations with the wife of one of his most loyal soldiers, Uriah. But it gets worse: David has Uriah murdered to cover up the dalliance.

The most prolific writer of the Christian scriptures, Paul, started out as Christianity’s most vicious persecutor. Why share that sordid detail? And one of Jesus’ closest disciples, Peter, was at one point the poster boy for cowardice, denying he even knew Jesus.

Yet the Bible’s writers dutifully share such facts, however scandalous those facts might be. Why? Because transparency enhances credibility. By contrast, propagandists are selective in what they share — even though knowledge of the negative may be just as helpful as knowing the positive.

For those who truly revere the Bible, the best way to emulate it when writing history is to tell it straight, however good, bad or ugly it might be.

James Coffin, a semi-retired pastor, lives in Altamonte Springs.