Well, the first weekend of President Trump’s administration was certainly a busy one. I’m not sure if he actually got anything accomplished, but there sure is a lot to talk about. I’m not one to talk politics for the most part, and I hoping to avoid that even now, but there was a topic that came up this weekend that is worth talking about – “Alternative Facts”.
In case you’ve been under a rock (or are reading this years from now, when hopefully no one remembers this) there was controversy over the size of the crowd at President Trump’s inauguration. He claimed there was a “a million, a million-and-a-half people.” people there. White House press s
ecretary, Sean Spicer claimed “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe” with absolutely no evidence to back that up. The press, however, reported much less than this, even showing pictures comparing his crowd to President Obama’s 2009 crowd.
When pressed on Spicer’s obvious error, advisor Kellyanne Conway said “You’re saying it’s a falsehood and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that.”
I don’t know how to define an “alternative fact” besides to say that its a falsehood, knowingly set forth to further a certain narrative. And while the term may be new, the concept certainly isn’t. Even in Christianity!
Back in the early days of the internet, it used to be a big thing to pass along emails with fantastic (but TRUE!) stories in them. Things like NASA finding a missing day and how that PROVES the story of the Sun standing still in the book of Joshua. Or, the TRUE STORY of how a guy got swallowed by a whale, just like Jonah! There were also stories of people digging so far into the earth that they heard screams, “proving” Hell and stories of fossil records of human and dinosaur footprints, proving we lived at the same time as them.
[caption id="attachment_711" align="alignright" width="236"]
Just imagine if he'd had FaceBook![/caption]
Now, to be fair, a lot of these stories were pushed around by well meaning people who just didn’t know any better. But some were pushed from pulpits where the pastor should have known better. I’m going to take a second to admit that I actually told the story of the dude swallowed by the whale story to one of my youth groups. I should have researched the truth better before pushing forth the narrative.
The problem hasn’t gotten any better. You can still see FaceBook posts from people and priests and pastors that further all kinds of agendas using pretty wild claims that are tough to back up or even stomach. Remember the Starbucks “Red Cup” Controversy? Or how about how Facebook was banning the posting of Christian-themed content or even how Pokemon is satanic?
Here’s the thing. Some of the stuff that we believe as Christians is hard enough to believe without making it worse. I mean, we believe Jesus was born of a virgin, healed people, raised people from the dead, rose from the dead…. its a tough pill for a lot of people to swallow and I can see that. I totally understand that. We don’t need to be making things worse by posting stories about how Einstein humiliated a professor by proving God exists.
Lets stick to the real stuff. That God was in Christ Jesus, not counting men’s sins against them. God loves you. God has forgiven you. God is not angry with you and he will never leave you or forsake you. That’s the good news, and that is a better message than anything Einstein or NASA could have come up with.
In case you’ve been under a rock (or are reading this years from now, when hopefully no one remembers this) there was controversy over the size of the crowd at President Trump’s inauguration. He claimed there was a “a million, a million-and-a-half people.” people there. White House press s
ecretary, Sean Spicer claimed “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe” with absolutely no evidence to back that up. The press, however, reported much less than this, even showing pictures comparing his crowd to President Obama’s 2009 crowd.When pressed on Spicer’s obvious error, advisor Kellyanne Conway said “You’re saying it’s a falsehood and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that.”
ALTERNATIVE FACTS
I don’t know how to define an “alternative fact” besides to say that its a falsehood, knowingly set forth to further a certain narrative. And while the term may be new, the concept certainly isn’t. Even in Christianity!
Back in the early days of the internet, it used to be a big thing to pass along emails with fantastic (but TRUE!) stories in them. Things like NASA finding a missing day and how that PROVES the story of the Sun standing still in the book of Joshua. Or, the TRUE STORY of how a guy got swallowed by a whale, just like Jonah! There were also stories of people digging so far into the earth that they heard screams, “proving” Hell and stories of fossil records of human and dinosaur footprints, proving we lived at the same time as them.
[caption id="attachment_711" align="alignright" width="236"]
Just imagine if he'd had FaceBook![/caption]Now, to be fair, a lot of these stories were pushed around by well meaning people who just didn’t know any better. But some were pushed from pulpits where the pastor should have known better. I’m going to take a second to admit that I actually told the story of the dude swallowed by the whale story to one of my youth groups. I should have researched the truth better before pushing forth the narrative.
The problem hasn’t gotten any better. You can still see FaceBook posts from people and priests and pastors that further all kinds of agendas using pretty wild claims that are tough to back up or even stomach. Remember the Starbucks “Red Cup” Controversy? Or how about how Facebook was banning the posting of Christian-themed content or even how Pokemon is satanic?
Here’s the thing. Some of the stuff that we believe as Christians is hard enough to believe without making it worse. I mean, we believe Jesus was born of a virgin, healed people, raised people from the dead, rose from the dead…. its a tough pill for a lot of people to swallow and I can see that. I totally understand that. We don’t need to be making things worse by posting stories about how Einstein humiliated a professor by proving God exists.
Lets stick to the real stuff. That God was in Christ Jesus, not counting men’s sins against them. God loves you. God has forgiven you. God is not angry with you and he will never leave you or forsake you. That’s the good news, and that is a better message than anything Einstein or NASA could have come up with.
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