Thought for Today
1 King 17:24 So the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth."
Psalm 15:1 O LORD, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill? 2 Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak the truth from their heart;
John 1:17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.
“The essence of the church is not in doing theology but believing and obeying the word of God. But because it has pleased God to reveal himself in the spoken human word, and because this word is subject to distortion and contamination by human ideas and opinions, the church needs clarity regarding true and false proclamation.” (I Want to Live These Days with You, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pg. 182)
Bonhoeffer lived and wrote in Germany before and during WWII. He was martyred by the Gestapo at Flossenbürg concentration camp on April 9, 1945. His words above were certainly true in the middle decades of the 20th century. I believe his words have taken on new and even greater urgency for Christians in the 21st century.
Bonhoeffer witnessed the efficacy of the Nazi propaganda machine and the struggles of Christians everywhere in combatting the messages of hate and fear which were the backdrop for those decades of the 1930s and 1940s. He saw first hand the “distortion and contamination by human ideas and opinions” in his home nation and around the world.
Frighteningly, we are seeing some of the same “distortion and contamination by human ideas and opinions” in our own nation and around the world today. Even here, in New England, we are seeing an increase in antisemitism and other hate crimes. Everywhere in our world today, we are faced with an additional threat to “believing and obeying the word of God.” Bonhoeffer knew well the problem resulting from government control of print and broadcast media. The Nazi propaganda machine controlled them all very effectively. Sadly and even more frighteningly, today we are faced with the threat of emerging technologies not even dreamed of then except in science fiction.
Fake news is nothing new. Joseph Goebbels was very adept at creating and distributing fake news almost 100 years ago. He was not the first propaganda master in human history. Our history is replete with other examples. Imagine, however, what someone like him could have done (or might now be doing) with our modern computer technology, and especially with artificial intelligence, AI.
In recent elections, we have had examples of AI-generated robocalls purporting to be from national political leaders encouraging people not to vote in elections. We now have the technology to produce video and audio presentations purporting to show almost anyone saying almost anything. The simple word ‘fake’ has taken on huge and disproportionate meaning today.
What are we as Christians to do? What are we to think and believe? What can we trust among all that we read, see and hear? How does the church find that needed clarity regarding true and false proclamation? Paul wrote, “Romans 10:17 So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” He also wrote, “Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God –”
Christians find our much-needed clarity regarding true and false proclamations by testing everything against God’s revealed word in the Bible. We find it by testing every action, every possible avenue of action against the life of the Son of God. We know what Jesus did do. The question for us is always, “What will we do based on our knowledge from scripture and from the guidance of the Holy Spirit?”
Stay safe, test everything against Christ, trust God,
Pastor Ray