LIES, DECEIT AND THE DEMISE OF TRUTH IN THE UNITED STATES
We are far along in the process of devolving into that of what we used to call a “third world country.” As our country has rejected God and spiraled downward into sheer materialism and self-centeredness, we have rejected the concepts of absolutes such as God, truth, the Ten Commandments and other concepts which have distinguished us from the animal world. In fact, our science has concluded that we are just highly advanced animals and without a soul. As we have rejected God, it is hardly surprising that He has rejected us, our government and our culture. Truth has gone out the window. There are no absolutes. Diogenes, the Greek philosopher, who sought truth would need to go elsewhere. Not only have we abandoned truth, absolutes and man as higher than the beasts, we have also abandoned basic concepts of sexuality. At first it began with the abandonment of the concept of marriage of a man and woman but then it even extended to the very concepts of what is a man and what is a woman. Now we have men claiming to be women participating in women’s sports. We have women who want to be men and men who want to be women. I submit that the basis of our society and our country is fragmenting because we have rejected God and we have rejected his Word and even the basic concepts of truth. (See further Romans 1:8-32).
Nowhere is the rejection of truth more apparent than in our news media be it on the television or internet. People no longer trust the news and why should they? My comments about the corruption of the News Media are not limited to one political party. It is not just one political party which lies. It is both. Liberals do not have a monopoly on lying. Like all infections, lies corrupt everything they touch. I have been following the litigation brought by Dominion against Fox News. It is incredible to me that Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have admitted such things that they knew that the claims of the election being stolen and the fraudulent claims of defective voting machines by Dominion were “incorrect” and “total bs” but Fox was concerned that its viewer ratings were dropping precipitously due to Fox’s early call of the Arizona election.
Amazingly, Carlson’s attorneys as well as Judges in New York and Delaware have openly admitted that even though these commentators knew that what was being said was not true, the nature of their telecasts were entertainment and that reasonable people would not conclude that they were factual. Au contraire, I know numerous “reasonable people” who believed that these conservative commentators and their guests were telling the “truth.”
Dominion’s suit for 1.6 billion against Fox will continue in Superior Court of the State of Delaware. I can summarize the conclusions from these factual scenarios succinctly. You can’t believe what is said by a political commentator and they generally will not be held liable for making incorrect statements. In short, you cannot trust the media.
Besides that, the media often reflects the views of its owners. And some owners own a whole lot of the media. For instance, Rupert Murdoch and his family control such media as :
The Wall Street Journal
Fox News
Fox Sports
HarperCollins publishing (Including the Christian publisher Zondervan)
New York Post
Barron’s
Dow Jones
National Geographic Chanel
20th Century Fox
The Sun (British)
The Times (British)
And many more.
In improving the bottom lines of Murdoch’s media he increased the emphasis of his media on crime, scandal, sex and sports. It was a formula which worked and made him very rich.
Lack of trust in the media is not a new phenomenon. Deceit is as old as the Serpent in the Garden of Eden who deceived Eve and Adam.
Deceit in the media is as old as man himself. Julius Caesar is thought to have used his accounts of the Gallic Wars to influence the people of Rome. Nero used deceit to blame the Christians for the fire in Rome which some suspect to have been set by himself and his henchmen. In the Second World War, Goebbels used false information to deceive the German people into following Hitler and supporting the war movement. As the master of propaganda, Goebbels said: “If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes accepted as the truth. “ He also said, “Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.” Russia used false information and news to deceive the Russian people. It is beyond ironic that the name of the official organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was “Pravda” which is the Russian word for “truth.” All countries claim to have a monopoly on truth even while disputing as to whether the truth really exists. For instance in the U.S., the motto of the Defense Information School is “Strength through Truth.” Do we still believe in an absolute truth in the U.S. ?
The use of propaganda is not an exclusive domain of the Nazi’s and the Soviets. The use of inaccurate journalism has been utilized by our country as well. One of the more strange incidents is that in 1782 Benjamin Franklin produced a fake issue of a Boston newspaper. The primary story in it was a fictitious story that American soldiers had found bags of money and scalps along with a letter to the King of England asking that he accept the scalps as a token of friendship. This “fake news” enhanced hostility against both English and Indians.
By the end of the nineteenth century the growth of “Yellow Journalism” was in full flower with the competition between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and the New York Journal owned by William Randolph Hearst. Te term “yellow journalism” generally referred to news articles with little factual research and catchy headlines. The movie Citizen Kane released in 1941 was based on a character Charles Foster Kane who was a combination of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. The “yellow journalism” of Pulitzer and Hearst are often thought to have been a major cause of the Spanish American War. The result of “yellow journalism” apparently is not education—but vast wealth. It is no accident that the fictional Kane lived in a mansion called “Xanadu” which was based upon a line from Samuel Coleridge’s famous poem “Kubla Khan” which went “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure- dome decree.”
My point is that “fake news” is not a recent phenomenon. It is an old phenomenon but now has gone viral thanks to social media and the computer where it can be spread instantaneously and often anonymously or through fake identities. “Fake news” has always been here but the difference is the speed by which it can be spread. From the accounts of the Kennedy Assassination to the coverage of COVID-19, we no longer trust the media to tell us the truth. Political commentaries are political theater which our courts have treated as reliable as articles in The National Inquirer.
But what does all of this have to Jesus Christ? Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6). Do we as a nation believe this?
Some other verses Jesus said about the truth:
John 8:32—And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:44—“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
Unfortunately our country has thrown out the concept of an absolute truth because that truth ultimately is Jesus Christ. Like Pilate, our leaders ask “What is truth?” Absolutes such as the 10 Commandments have been abolished from the public forum. Meanwhile, lies prosper in our society because we have rejected Truth.
In our rejection of Christ and the truth, we put our society upon sinking sand. In lieu of the truth of the Good News of the Gospel we have embraced the false news of the media. Where there is no absolute truth how can there ever be a defense to what is libel because without truth there can be no libel in the first place and further truth is not available to be a defense against libel.
Also, we no longer expect our leaders and political authorities to tell us the truth. Their defense, for better or worse, is the protection of freedom of speech in the First Amendment. So in the important things, such as news and government, there is little penalty for telling lies. Likewise police authorities are permitted to lie in order to get someone to confess to a crime. They can make claims of evidence which they do not have. In short, our police authorities are exempt from telling the truth and often do not do so with impunity. If those in authority are exempt from the truth, it is no wonder that truth is ultimately becoming a rare commodity in our marketplace and in our country. Economically, the line between advertising and false advertising is quickly disappearing. Again, if there is no truth, how can anything be false.
If there is no truth, how is it possible not to bear false witness against our neighbor as prohibited by the Ninth of the Ten Commandments. If there is no truth then there is no false witness and no lying, but Jesus, to the contrary, makes clear that Satan is the “father of lies”. Lies are the language of this fallen world.
In another context, we look to truth in our oaths. We take oaths of government and oaths before we testify. If there is no truth how can one expect there to be a penalty for taking a false oath. Our country depends upon oaths and pledges and underlying all of this is the basic concept of truth. Even our Presidents take an oath of office as do members of our military.
If we throw out absolutes, including truth, we will reap a whirlwind of our own making,
As for me and my household, we choose to believe that there are absolutes. And we absolutely believe that Jesus is the truth. Like you, we want to be the salt in this tasteless world. I encourage you to speak the truth in love. As Christians, we must speak truth, I am trying to do so in these editions of Locusts and Honey. As Jesus said in so many instances in his ministry, “I tell you truly….”
