Perhaps you read this headline: “Idaho city’s ordinance tells pastors to marry gays or go to
jail.”[1] I’ve seen it repeatedly in my Facebook feed. The problem with the article is that it is
trafficking a half-truth. The reader
thinks that the city in question has told pastors of churches that they must
marry gays or go to jail. In reality,
the city has told two for-profit wedding chapel operators (Donald and Evelyn
Knap) that they cannot decline gay patrons based on city ordinances. Do I think it’s the city’s business to tell
private business owners to act against religious beliefs? No I do not.
Do I see a slippery slope regarding civil rights and religious freedom?
Yes I do.[2] Does this diminish a
Christian’s responsibility to communicate truthfully? No it does not!
Truth tangent
If
it’s the sanctity of marriage we are concerned about, wedding chapels encourage
impulsive, emotional, shallow decision making.
Wedding chapels (correct me if I’m wrong) exclude pre-marital counseling
as a part of the process of matrimony.
Wedding chapels probably contribute to the possibility of a failed
marriage. The point of this rabbit trail
is that if our concern in evangelical circles is for the sanctity of marriage, wedding
chapels are not great allies in our cause.
But you’d never know what the issues were just by reading a misleading
title and impulsively posting it on Facebook.
Truth challenged
A problem with passing along click-bait journalism is
that many people will never read past the headline. We say
we are committed to truth and yet often Christians are willing to pass along
information that is at best skewed and at worst often completely inaccurate and
untrue. This happens daily! It’s often political and racial and could
often be fixed with a simple effort at research. Use a search engine. Read a few articles. Get some perspective. My suggestion would be, if you don’t have
time to do that, then don’t pass a long an article that seems fantastic and
charged and that goes further along in
creating a divide in a culture that’s already seriously divided.
Gospel truth
The underlying problem is that if we are people who are
committed to truth and to the Gospel and the Gospel is truth,[3] we
undermine our credibility and we take away our capacity to speak to a
generation that really needs to know there is truth—that we are credible people
and not incredible people. It breaks my
heart to say that almost every day I see Christians post articles on social
media that are not true and that this impulsive, careless behavior damages our
Gospel witness.
Hysteria or Hope?
Much of the drive-by journalism we have easy access to
contributes to the hysteria that is heightened in our rapidly changing social
context. I am thoroughly enjoying Larry
Osborne’s book Thriving in Babylon.[4] He makes the point there that “our propensity
to catastrophize and buy into conspiracy theories undercuts our testimony and
credibility with non-Christians.”
Shouldn’t those who know how the story unfolds continue to have
confident hope that God’s purposes will prevail? Should we cave into depression with each new
news story? Rather than dumping all our
emotional energy into the next sensational news story, what if we worked more
on pouring our lives into redemptive behaviors in the places we live? Yes, including our behavior on social media.
If you hear me saying there is no bad news and that all
you have to do is act like everything is sunshine and ponies you have
misunderstood. My appeal is simply this:
please before you pass along some inflammatory, divisive political, social or
spiritual article, do a little research (Philippians 4:8, Proverbs 8:13).
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