I know a man who recently divorced his wife.
That may not sound unusual, but the two had been married over fifty years. They were grandparents and in their seventies. Why did they get divorced? Because Mrs. Divorce had recently become a more and more devoted follower of one of our presidential candidates. Mr. Divorce could not stand the man. And somehow they could not put that difference aside. Politics took over their home, and they spent their time fighting and slinging accusations.
Accepting a viewpoint entirely too common in our time, the two spouses, now political opponents, each believed the other to have joined the “Enemy.” The bad blood finally culminated in a tragic and unnecessary divorce.
What is going on in American politics? When did we forget how to be friends and set our differences aside and “reach across the aisle”? With every presidential election, the level of animosity between the parties seems to ramp up.
One reason is the internet. The internet generally and social media specifically are extremely divisive.
Memes, short videos, podcasts, and media from self-proclaimed “content creators” with no education, expertise, or personal knowledge of the facts—have a tendency to drive people apart.
Social media moves the right wing further to the right and the left wing further to the left.
Social media manipulates us not only into hating each other, but it manipulates us with sensationalistic stories. We are drawn like moths to the flame. We cannot look away, like drivers passing an accident. We strain for a look at something exciting, when safety and truth would have us look straight ahead. God would have you look straight ahead. “Do not turn aside to the right or to the left” Deuteronomy 5:32.
Feel free to reject what I am saying. It is covered well in the film “THE SOCIAL DILEMMA.” But you are free to dispute the film’s argument about causes. But consider the effect: we have become a land of scoffers. Increasingly we don’t believe in anything. Each of us seems to have climbed out on our own branch of the conspiracy tree. Some are convinced the “Deep State” is pulling strings and controlling the federal government. Or that NASA is a lie factory and we never went to the moon or even beyond the atmosphere. Oh, and the earth is flat, of course.
And our political party is pure and good and right and your party is comprised of Satan worshippers operating a pedophile ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor. This is all madness. (The pedophile ring story was classic “fake news,” but it took the internet by storm, thousands believed it, and one true believer—in the lie—walked into the pizza place with a gun to “conduct his own investigation.” There were no secret rooms filled with kidnapped children and no one was hurt during the reckless incident.)[1]
“In the end times there will be scoffers walking according to their own ungodly desires. These people create divisions and are unbelievers, not having the Spirit” Jude 18-19.
“These people blaspheme anything they do not understand” Jude 10.
Are you a scoffer? Do you question the nation you once believed in? Do you think there are powerful secrets at the top and that no one can be trusted? Do you blaspheme or mock things you do not understand, whether physics (the space program) or cutting-edge medicine or law enforcement or the US Supreme Court?
Few of us are experts. No one is an expert in all subjects. But don’t be what the book of Proverbs describes as a fool. Do not mock or disrespect what you do not understand. Pray. Ask God for wisdom. And work a little harder to understand. Educate yourself. Give experts the benefit of the doubt. And trust God.
I’ll admit it: conspiracies are EXCITING! However, when God wanted to reveal Himself to Elijah, God was not in the storm, the earthquake, or the fire. God was in the “still, small voice” 1 Kings 19:11-13.
“God is not a God of CONFUSION, but of peace” 1 Corinthians 14:33. Turn away from the drama of the latest conspiracy theory and look to the Prince of Peace.
ΑΩ
[1] Pizzagate: What to Know About the Conspiracy Theory | TIME
Jesus said the end times would be characterized not only by “wars and rumors of wars,” by earthquakes and famines and the beginning of the birth pangs, but by DECEPTION. “Take heed that no one misleads you” Matthew 24:4. I have never seen such a chorus of misleading voices. Between anti-intellectualism, social media, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Fakes, incompetent Influencers, the predatory wellness movement, biased reporting masquerading as journalism, the ignorance of expertise, plagiarism and other factors decimating scholarship and the peer-review process, the rise of false religions, cults, and new age spirituality, I am more inclined to call ours the end times than ever before.
Household Words: 