When we made the The Trump Cards: "Fake News" from the Bible expansion deck [Sold Out], we composed each to display a direct quote, action, or attitude expressed by the Cheeto-in-Chief. Just like all of our other decks, each Canon Card featured a Biblical reference. However, in this deck, the cards showed how its content is always in direct contradiction with Biblical principles (making the Bible "fake news").
Our purpose was to show how his words and actions were at odds, with not only common sense and decency, but also the witness of the Bible. Thus, we included gems like:
Watching magically invisible thousands upon thousands of people cheering as the World Trade Center was coming down. (Ephesians 4:25)
Not having at least a fourth grade understanding of why the American Civil War occurred (Proverbs 17:28)
That time you said "I was a good student. I understand things. I comprehend very well, okay, better than I think almost anybody". (Proverbs 18:2), and of course,
“WRONG!” (Proverbs 18:6)
This last was always a good indicator of when he was/is lying.
But this Card Talk is NOT about the Orange Dumpster-Fire in Chief. It’s not about 45’s inability to consistently operate in a world of truth. It’s not even about his supporters (at least not directly). It’s about your mother, your friend, your cousin, your co-worker, (etc) who keeps sharing lies on the internet.
Conspiracy theories, anti-intellectual screeds, and ridiculous medical advice that is not only dangerous, but makes all who shelter under the umbrella of “Christianity” look bad.
We could spend this Card Talk explaining the various reasons why this problem even exists from a psychological and social perspective. We could pontificate on cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, social conformity, source amnesia, “the repetition effect,” “the backfire effect,” “magical thinking,” the Dunning-Krueger effect, or motivated reasoning, but others—with the appropriate letters behind their names in psychology and sociology—have already done a much better than we ever could.
Likewise, we could add our voice to the many who look for the ideological reasons within Christianity itself to explain why some of the faithful are more susceptible to believing and spreading lies. For example, we are a religious group founded on one charismatic religious professional, who was largely shunned and lambasted by His peers, who wandered the region screaming, “Hey everyone: you’re getting it all wrong! Listen to Me! I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life…!” (Deep, right?)
Instead, we want to focus on the problem and solution from a purely biblical perspective.
The Problem Biblically Stated
Each of the Trump Cards contains a Bible passage. Many are in the book of Proverbs: a book dealing with wisdom, Wisdom, truth, and Truth. Let’s look at a few of them.
Proverbs 14:5
A faithful witness does not lie,
but a false witness breathes out lies.
Proverbs 17:28
Even fools who keep silent are considered wise;
when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent.
Proverbs 18:2
A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,
but only in expressing personal opinion.
Proverbs 18:6
A fool’s lips bring strife,
and a fool’s mouth invites a flogging.
and to throw in a New Testament verse in for good measure:
Ephesians 4:25
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.
Do you feel all Christians can look at there social media feeds and feel that they have not run afoul of these verses?
what happened to this standard of Truth in Christian communities?
Look: we are suspicious as anyone about everything. Probably more so. We made a game that digs into parts of the Bible most people are happy to skip: clearly we have no problem doing our homework to find truth, even if it makes us unpopular in some circles. But that’s the thing: WE DO OUR HOMEWORK. Why? Because that is what we were raised to believe good Christians do.
We were raised learning about the Bereans in Acts 17 who “searched the scriptures daily” to see if Paul was full of shit. These people fact-checked the Apostle Paul and Christians today can’t spend .02465443 seconds to check the source of the post they are about to share?
What does it say about the faith that there are people who make it clear that they haven’t opened a book, or done a half-hearted Google search on a topic, since 7th grade (and even then, they only read the back of the book/Sparknotes, and then invented the rest of the “research project,” hoping the teacher was too burnt out to notice)?
What kind of a witness to the world is that?
A Simple, Biblical Solution
Perhaps one of the greatest ironies about this, is that the people we see most often quoting 2 Timothy chapter 2, seem to be the ones in the most egregious violation of it’s message on a daily basis.
Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.
~ 2 Timothy 2:14-15 (NRSV)
Now, we know the context of this is about contemporary debates over the resurrection (because we did our homework, See vs. 16ff), but the metric discussed is salient to this discussion.
The NRSV’s rendering “do your best” is from the Greek word σπουδάζω which means to be “earnest” or “diligent,” especially in educational matters. Thus, as the ye olde King James Version states it, and we had beaten into our heads when we were growing up:
“Study to show yourself approved… “.
[Don’t believe us? You can confirm it HERE, HERE, and HERE]
The answer is right there: If you do “diligent,” “earnest” “studying,” you won’t be “wrangling over [fake news], which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.” You will be “approved” by God and all the rest of us creatures who have to listen to you, read your content, or be forced to block your nonsense.
And think about all the people who have been “ashamed” (or should have been) when whatever garbage they posted on Monday was proven to be false by Thursday. What do those people say to the “unbelievers” who they are trying to “witness” to about the wisdom and power of their Lord and Savior? A biblical mindset could have prevented all of this.
As we discussed in our Card Talk on Matthew 18:20—the famous “where two or three are gathered in His name…” passage—the Hebrew community and the early Church both put a premium on truth.
In matters of discipline, Deuteronomy 19:15 required multiple sources to bring charges against someone in the community.
One person’s wild accusation (or post, or Youtube video, or tweet) was not sufficient for the community to embrace.
So there is a simple, biblical ideal for our modern age: do your damn homework or STFU.
if you didn’t study and verify the real-world, sourced from MULTIPLE reliable places, information YOURSELF
DON’T F@#%ING POST IT.
Perhaps we can all learn something from so simple a biblical principle.
But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we’re going to Hell.
