A face you can trust

Brian Williams has a face you can trust. That, I’m sure, is partly why he is the anchorman for the NBC Nightly News. I look at his face and I say to myself, “I trust this man.” In 2008 researchers at Princeton University analyzed what makes a face you can trust, publishing their findings in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). I personally didn’t need that study to know that Williams is trustworthy. I consulted his Google “images” and that was enough—just look at his hair, his graying Father Knows Best temples, the set of his jaw, his soulful eyes.

Now it turns out that Williams made up a story about being in a Chinook helicopter that got hit by rocket fire during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He has apologized and claims he was mistaken (the fog of war and all). Some are doubting his sincerity because his apology comes only after being pressured by the other occupants of the chopper, with many thinking that one should not be confused about whether one has been hit by a rocket.

(Just as a side note, Williams’ little embellishment was totally unnecessary for glory. There is already “valor cred” in his having been in Iraq in March 2003, and more than enough glory in enduring the two subsequent days of sandstorm. But such is the tragedy of man, to grasp for just a little bit more than what is necessary, to his own harm: “Whoever loves money never has enough,” says Ecclesiastes 5:10 (NIV), and this is true for other desirables. Just as Richard Nixon would have been reelected without the 1972 Watergate break-in, Brian Williams would have been hailed as brave without the over-the-top chopper story.)

Returning to faces and Princeton, the problem is that anything that can be quantified can be faked. As the saying goes, “What people want today is integrity. If you can fake that you’ve got it made.” That’s why the Bible cautions us to beware of people’s faces. Jeremiah 1:8 and Ezekiel 2:6, in the original Hebrew, warn us about not being thrown off by people’s faces. I used to think that meant hateful faces or menacing faces, but trustworthy faces might be the worst. Perhaps there have been times, in recent memory, when a whole nation was spellbound and deceived by the charismatic demeanor of a presidential candidate. Just saying.

It’s too bad for Williams though. By his actions he set a principle in play that seems unfair but that is unforgiving as gravity:

“Dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor” (Ecclesiastes 10:1, ESV).

It is a warning to the rest of us, just as every tragedy in Scripture is (1 Corinthians 10:6–11). The wise man will, like Christ, not “grasp” at glory (Philippians 2:6). He will not lie, for a lie has a short life (Proverbs 12:19). And when it comes to trust, the wise will heed “Put not your trust in princes” (Psalm 146:3, ESV), even media princes. Let God be true though every man a liar.