What he said

I have referenced Chuck Colson's Breakpoint messages several times before. A recent issue, which you can read here, entitled "Breaking the Spiral of Silence," highlights a common problem in our culture. I have seen it affect the political debates, and I have seen it affect decisions by church committees. It is rampant in the media, and even though we suspect it goes on, no one admits how much it controls the direction of our world and lives. I'm not going to define "it" right here, because I hope you will hit the link and read the original - the way he said it.

I will give a quick and current example, however.Yesterday on a local radio talk show, I heard a state legislator tell outrageous (and easily refutable) lies about an organization I am actually employed by. The possible explanations for this are many, but they do not include ignorance. As a legislator he as access to the facts.

He could have been saying what he knows his colleagues and constituents expect to hear (toeing the party line), and he was probably lazily repeating the lies of others without careful thought or research. A likely explanation is that he has heard these lies so often that he actually believes them to be the truth.

As Christians, we often naively assume that others have the same "fear of God" and reverence for the truth that we know we are supposed to have. But we live in a culture of lies, and Satan is the "father of lies."  It is more work to find out the truth and speak it strictly, but to those who fear God, consequences of spreading lies are too serious to make negligence worthwhile.

Above all, we should think about how we decide what is true. The gentleman on the radio had a pleasant voice, spoke with the right amount of passion, without seeming to be a nut case. I have seen picures of himand read his biogrpahy. He is visually good-looking, and polished - educated, nicely dressed, nice family, etc. The lies he spouted would be good news to people who have been raised in a collectivist environment of class envy, lack of personal responsiblity, and blame-shifting, where there is no transcendent right and wrong and, above all, no supernatural authority to sort it all out - in other words, twenty-first century American homes and schools, in general.      

A good summation of Colson's article would be something like this: is the position I am advocating, or the decision I am voting for, based on a rational analysis of the facts? Or am I more concerned about what people (especially attractive advocates) think about which side I choose?