Tell The Truth - Or, At Least Don't Lie - Part 3

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally some form of artistic mark to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Peterson, Jordan B. 12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos. Great Britain: Penguin Random House, 2018. Rule 8: Tell the Truth – Or, At Least, Don’t Lie, pp. 211- 221

Opening Thought: “It is deceit that still threatens us, most profoundly, today.”[1] Peterson walks the reader through how deceit, in its many forms, can shift a person and state into a grotesque monster. The fuller paragraph reads:

It is deceit that makes people miserable beyond what they can bear. It is deceit that fills human souls with resentment and vengefulness. It is deceit that produces the terrible suffering of mankind: the death camps of Nazis; the torture chambers and genocides of Stalin and that even greater monster, Mao. It was deceit that killed hundreds of millions of people in the twentieth century. It was deceit that almost doomed civilization itself. It is deceit that still threatens us, most profoundly, today.[2]

I think Peterson is hitting the nail on the head. Deceit is the moving gear between pride and idolatry. What is worse, deceit robs reason from God, twists reason for its own perversions, and then falls in love with its own creation. This creation will worship the pride and the idolatrous nature of the user, and the sinful cycle is complete, ready to bulldoze its way through existence.

It may seem weird to consider reason as part of the equation of deception, but the more you think about it, the more you realize that it is completely reasonable to say so, pun intended. Reason is a tool that interprets and may demonstrate rationality and connectivity in logic and law. However, this doesn’t mean the user of reason has fully rationalized all possibilities. In fact, as finite creatures, it can in many cases be impossible to rationalize all possibilities. A person must also be able and willing to seek reason to its fuller capacity, as a tool to rationalize truth, despite our limited capacities. So, we often must work with what we can deduce as the most reasonable interpretation given the available information. If new information is provided which would reasonably suggest an alternative solution or conclusion, the rational person would have to reevaluate their positions. The sins connected to reason come into play when the person finds personal advantage within the limited reasons, so they go willfully blind or distract from fuller explanation to reap the benefits from the false premise. So, it may be reasonable to a point, but the whole truth tells another story. Or a person creates false reasoning or circular reasoning, to manipulate others into thinking what they are presenting is reasonable.

The theory of Meontic evil is that evil is not an elemental force, rather it is a deprivation of goodness. When the truth is skewed through methods of reason, we experience evil. It will often appear to be good because as creatures with minds and souls longing for a rational explanation, but also avoiding the responsibility of enduring the weight of existence, we will willfully blind ourselves to avoid coming to the light of truth, which will destroy our false rationales.

And since reason is part of the equation, it can become very easy to get caught up in the lies. If you come up with a lie that is reasonable enough, you may even start to believe it yourself. Or worse, get many people believing it too.

So how do we avoid lying, how do we stop ourselves from falling into this temptation of deceit, and corrupt reason?

I find myself wrestling with this practice more and more. Though I must often remind myself to do it. I ask myself, ‘am I being honest in what I say?’ Trying to choose my words carefully, to make sure I’m not stepping into the realm of white lies, life lies, axiom lies, willful blindness, or deceit.

Opening Prayer: Christ, Truth of truths, please speak clearly to our hearts. We will need your strength to resist the temptation of deception. We will justify it when it serves us, but remind our spirits that it does not serve us at all, rather it serves only a corrupt, twisted, and misshapen world of darkness. Help us to follow you Light of light. Amen.

Scripture: Mark 8:36 - For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeit his soul?

Reflection: Like many, when people speak to me about “lying” the first people I think of are politicians. As a church minister, I tend to avoid the political talk. I never want my position in the church to be a platform to influence the political opinions of my congregants. What I do hope to do it to teach the gospel, and if my congregants are moved by Christ through His Word to then reflect politically, then I am pleased.

However, I feel it has become harder and harder not to speak about politics from the pulpit, at least for me, because of something that has started surfacing more and more in the last decade, politicians speaking about “truth”.

Now it has always been an archetype that politicians tried to present themselves as the honest, hardworking, salt of the earth type, all the while painting their opponents as living embodiments of excrement crossed with Satan. But since 2016 was elected as the U.S. President, the idea of “fake news” and “misinformation” really began to become household words. The old word for this was “propaganda” – regardless, the functionality is the same. The two sides of the political line got very aggressive in saying the other side’s narrative was false, while their own sides were not the sides of the truth. We have seen a similar peak in this kind of rhetoric in Canada as well, though we do not seem to be a televised, (aside from the Trucker Rallies). Politicians and political parties paint themselves with this false humility, saying things like, we believe in truth, we believe if facts or we believe in science. However, like reason; if truth, facts, or science are not fully explored, and freely shared, then it can become corrupt by limitation, willful ignorance, or deceit. Spin doctors do this for politicians, share a limited source of data or take one scientific quote out of context and build an entire campaign around it.

Now I believe this slander of “fake news”, or “misinformation” seems like part and parcel of the whole political sphere, but recently in the news, it has taken a frightening turn, in my opinion. The headlines now tell us that the “Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced this week that it has launched what is being dubbed a Disinformation Governance Board to combat “misinformation.”[3] No, I don’t presume to know where you stand on President Biden, or what your political leaning is. I often find myself split on political issues, more liberal on some issues, and more conservative on others. But this “ministry of truth” as Joe Concha (opinion contributor to The Hill refers to it) is a political party trying to legislate “truth”. Truth is not a secular idea, nor is it something that can be so easily determined, nor something that can be voted for, so I am very unsure how we have come to a point where someone would have the hubris to create such a platform in the government sphere. 

One of the key things a person, or an institution, needs to have to be a seeker of truth, is humility, because as soon as one believes they have the “whole truth” they have already committed deceit in their heart. Truth needs to be handled in the most delicate way possible, and it certainly cannot be limited to the big thumb of government agencies. No matter what political association or leanings you have, we should all be nervous about this kind of governance.

We all need to be seekers of truth. We all need to work to avoid willful ignorance. I suppose, one could argue, if you pass the burden of "truth-seeking" to an elected or even non-elected power, that would be an institutionalized form of willful ignorance. Why burden yourself with truth and reason, when you can pay someone to tell you what a reasonable truth to follow blindly.           

Challenge for the Week: Look at the institutions of the world (i.e., political parties; religious groups, corporations, and social media groups) what sort of claims do you hear people making about “truth” or ideas related to truth? Is there a lack of humility in these claims? And what do you think that tells you about these groups? Now don’t forget to do this with groups and institutions you are associated with too, it is always easier to cast stones at others, but Christ calls us to look at our own sins before we look to the sins of our brothers and sisters.

Prayer for your week: God, help us to speak the truth, help us to live out truth, and help us to be discerning over what is true. Be with us in this journey and remind us about the truth found in your Gospel. Amen.

Artistic Close:

NY Post illustration
Picture Sources: https://nypost.com/2022/04/28/joe-biden-under-fire-for-dystopian-disinformation-bureau/

---

[1] Peterson J.P., 12 Rules. pp. 221.

[2] Ibid., 221.

[3]Concha J., Joe Biden’s ‘Ministry of Truth” The Hill:  https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3472878-joe-bidens-ministry-of-truth/ (last accessed May 2, 2022)