Whom to Believe?

In these difficult days of 2020, we are now being beset by increasingly troublesome indications that the media, the newspapers, certainly Facebook and Twitter, are peppered with speakers and writers who have obvious or perhaps not-so-obvious, that is to say, more insidious, agendas. This one is hoping you will vote a certain way on November 3rd, that one hopes you won’t.

I’d like to say fie on both houses, since it’s the convenient thing to say, and plough a middle ground, but honestly I don’t quite believe that. There is in my estimation far more evidence of sheer lies being promulgated by the left. To be sure the more strident voices on the right are sometimes less than helpful, because although I doubt they are lying, though they sometimes discredit themselves by their stridency.

The major culprits are the main-stream media. I have never quite seen a more blatant agenda behind so much of what passes as news. This is dangerous, because it leaves us with a seriously compromised Fourth Estate. Even COVID news and statistics must now be questioned. What they say might be true, but how are we to know? Scientists, of all people, are being canceled if they have the courage to step too many inches out of the lines set for them by a ‘woke’ community. The new McCarthyism is unforgiving.

One commentator recently said a bit too much more than he meant to admit. CNN anchor Don Lemon blasphemed last week that “Jesus Christ — if you believe in, if that’s who you believe in, Jesus Christ — admittedly was not perfect when he was here on this earth. So why are we deifying the founders of this country, many of whom owned slaves?”

A number of people quickly called him out for this, and rightly so, but I’d like to say more.

Of course Jesus Christ admitted no such thing. He is the Truth. And since he is, he is therefore utterly believable. He is our Anchor, our Rock, our Shield, our Source of life and salvation, our only Beacon in troubled waters.

These days in particular we need to be hearing his words to us, for when times are difficult we need more, not less, of the words of the faith, from Sacred Scripture, the mouth house of God.

And so therefore it is time for Christian pastors to rise up unafraid and speak the truth all the more boldly and fearlessly. People are afraid, or weary, or confused. Pastors need to call a solemn assembly. And when people come, they need the comfort of Christ’s words and Sacraments. For ultimately there is no one else we can, or should, believe without question.

And, believing, we need fear nothing.