Lyin' For the Lord - Does Politics "Trump" Religion

HOAX WARNING!

I got a post with this copy of a supposed official email the other day. Not sure who sent it, but several friends passed it along asking me to pray because apparently, the Pope had got together with President Trump and the Republican Congress and they were going to pass a National Sunday Law this month. It said that President Ted Wilson was asking all Adventists to pray and have a revival at 7am or 7pm to pray for the latter rain.

It's a fake. Wilson never said such a thing. Praying twice a day might well be a good thing for all Christians, it's sort of a waste if you're praying about something that's not real. It would be like praying God end the famine in America. What would be the point. Our poor people are fat.

I suspect that this post was created by one of our dear Democrat church members who have been losing their minds over Donald Trump's election since 2016.  Now I do know that the Pope is urging all Catholics, Unions, Protestants and Evangelicals to work to pass Sunday Laws in their own countries. They've been doing that for a century now. And he's made headway in places like Europe where you can be arrested for mowing your grass on Sunday in Germany, but then who would actually be surprised that Germany would be the first to fall?  But writing fake stories like the one up there at the top of the page, kind of reminds me of the tactics one of the disciples used to help Jesus along. That did not end well.


I sent word to my friends after I got the post that it was a fake, because I knew they'd want to know. Most of the guys I know are good guys. They are sweet and trusting people that unscrupulous people like to take advantage of to promote whatever religious or political agenda they think isn't being promoted well enough. But none of them ever want to pass along fake stories. We remember the story of Judas too well. I remember the pastor some of the good church members made up lies about because they figured God needed them to get rid of a pastor who preached about righteousness by faith and not enough about the law. Same deal.

I write religious and political weblogs, so I check sources before I pass the info along by habit. I never have figured out how people can make up a lie like that and think it forwards the cause of spreading the gospel. It's very like those hell fire and damnation preachers who think that frightening people into the pews is a good method of winning souls for Jesus. 

These guys seem to think God needs a better propaganda machine or something is all I can figure. Either that or they are working for the father of lies directly. Anyway, when I see this stuff pass through my friends and land in my email or on my timeline, I tell them its a hoax. I try not to hurt their feelings, but I'm certain they would want to know if what they were sending their friends and loved ones was a falsehood.  I almost added "however well-intentioned they might be". The trouble is that the act of making that sort of thing up, thinking to control the narrative on behalf of God, is not well-intentioned.  Judas tried to manipulate events to speed up Jesus' coronation as Israel's king and look how badly that turned out.

My friends usually get this stuff from a dear friend themselves; one who has also been fooled because they got it from a trusted friend and that trusted friend got it from a trusted friend and so on and so on. It's cruel to lie to someone who trusts you and whoever starts these things is the one who is to blame, not those who trusted him. I don't think badly of trusting souls who get fooled by these kinds of holy hoaxes. I try to let them know if they've been taken in by a fake. I actually have a lot of friends who message me once in a while asking if some post they received is legit. I'm happy to tell them. Now if I just could figure out how to gey paid to do that, I'd have a full time job. As it is, I just count it as my good deed for the day. I would have checked the story for myself anyway had it come directly to me.

And I admit, It does give me a little satisfaction to disrupt these people's deceptions. I consider myself and my work as a kind of antibiotic for hoaxes. The disease is an old one, from the first Sunday Law by Constantine to Jonathan Edwards' sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (which I was forced to read in high school literature class) to the 1888 and 2015 General Conferences where data was manipulated "for our own good". Church power brokers have not been above massaging the data and telling stories to manipulate the brethren to do what they want. It's usually about power. 

With some hoaxes, however, it's about feeling superior to the rubes who fall for it. There's a so-called Adventist satire website called "Barely Adventist"* that serves as a source for many of these rumors. They claim to be satire, but unlike actual satire, the stories they write are often more like "gotcha" pieces to see how gullible you are. True satire is broad farce and it's easy to figure out whether or not the information in the story is factual or not. These guys seem to be laughing at any trusting soul who falls for the gag.

I figure I'd hate to be in the shoes of the people who create lies about God at the judgment. The Third Commandment is not about using curse words. It's entirely about taking God's name and place for yourself. Lying to "help" yourself feel powerful or (worse) to improve God's image is what "Take not the name of the Lord thy God in vain," is talking about.

I can hear the dialogue when these guys stand before the throne of God. I figure a lot of them will say something like, "But God, I made up lies to prove your prophecies were right. I made up miracles to prove you were powerful and do miracles. I made up sappy stories to prove you were a loving God. I made up stories to prove that if you just ask, You will make us rich. I made up stories to reveal the gullibility of your sheep that we might laugh at them and they might learn to be as wise as serpents."

And I expect God will say something like, "Depart from me ye workers of iniquity. I don't remember ever hiring a PR guy or a comedian to do evil in My name!"

© 2018 by Tom King

* I deliberately did not include the link to "Barely Adventist". You'll have to Google it yourself. Occasionally, they have something actually funny, but most of the time they merely mock the longing of God's people for His coming and for signs that it is soon. They are in my view the SDA equivalent of the "satire" site Babylon Bee which is also not an actual satire. Both are more like prank sites and I find pranks a cruel kind of humor.

** I went to check on the Barely Adventist site just now and the site was offline. I did not weep.