Truth matters. And so many times today we, as Christians, can get duped by the news into believing lies. It’s difficult not to do so.
We are lovers of the truth. And to spout falsehoods or half truths is not a good thing.
I am amused at how incensed people have been over the Ukraine discussions of late. President Trump, as the man has occasionally done, really set people off when he said that Zelensky was a dictator and that Ukraine started the war.
As far as how Zelensky leads Ukraine, I don’t know if he’s a dictator or not. There’s been enough bad stuff flying around about him that I wouldn’t doubt it. But I don’t believe he’s on par with Putin in Russia. I mean, we are constantly having to negotiate the release of our people from Russia because of his bad activity over there.
But we know that Putin started the war.
We do t really know much else.
And that’s really my point. I don’t know, and I suspect my heated friends don’t either. I think we’re all a bit misinformed.
To be clear, I think liberals and conservatives are passionately misinformed. And because we watch different news sites, we tend to miss things that are obvious to the other side.
Some Examples
I have some examples of this happening. There are whole narratives and stories that you don’t know if you only watch one or two news outlets. You do not have a clue about part of this if you’re not looking.
Early on, conservatives read stories about the arrests of Ukrainian Orthodox Priests, not by Russia but by Ukraine. It was Tucker Carlson that was pointing this out before his departure from Fox. At this point I began to be alarmed. But it has since been written about by PBS. Liberals act like things like this never happened. Or, when they do, they say that these priests were working for Russia. It doesn’t make it onto CBS Nightly News, they just don’t choose to cover it.
Liberals are quick to point out something Conservatives don’t often know about the ordeal. America made a deal with Ukraine. If they surrendered their nuclear weapons, the USA, the UK, and Russia promised to protect them. This happened in 1994. Fox doesn’t say a word about this. And if they do, it is quickly shoved under the rug. Now, it is pretty sorry of us to decide not to do what we agreed to do, especially since they gave up their nuclear arsenal to make the agreement.
But here are other agreements that liberals do t want to pay attention to.
All sorts of Western world leaders promised not to expand NATO toward Russia. It would also be pretty sorry of us to expand NATO after promising we wouldn’t. Liberals either don’t know or don’t care that Russia had long said that Ukraine’s entrance into NATO was a red line they couldn’t allow to happen. And before the invasion, the Biden administration was telling Ukraine that they’d be able to join NATO. We are told that to say such things is to spout Russian propaganda, but facts are…well…you know the thing.
We don’t all get the same information. And wouldn’t you know it, that is on purpose. As a conservative, I can tell you that I am likely not aware of all my blind spots on this issue. And really, that’s okay.
Quick to Talk and Slow to Listen
I think that a lot of our issue is that we don’t really like to do a lot of observing. We like to chatter, but not listen. We get a thrill out of our righteous anger, even if it’s ignorant.
My football coach would often yell at us that “God gave you two ears and one mouth so you could listen twice as much as you talked.” And it really was good advice, even if it was usually yelled when we weren’t paying attention to him.
But that is sort of the point. We run to our slum, gather our group’s information, and then yell at each other with the information we were given. We didn’t bother to realize that the slumlords might’ve just been stirring us up a bit so they could make money off of our remaining in their slum.
Christians, Be slow to Speak
You probably don’t know as much as you think you know about foreign affairs. I know that I don’t. And the impassioned outbursts are not doing anyone any good.
News organizations make money by giving you part of the story and keeping you hooked. It would take so much time to know all the story that we’d all be unproductive if we attempted to figure it out.
So, maybe the best method is to be slow to speak. Maybe the best approach to breaking news is to wait and see what happens.
I often speak before I should, so this is in part for me to think about. But being slow to speak is a good rule. I think I’ve read it somewhere before.
“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”
James 1:19-20 ESV
Wait and see would be better than lying…and a lot better than wasting time fighting about things I do t really understand.
R.Dwain Minor
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