When the Shepherds lead us Astray

      We all do it.  That is, we all turn to authority figures for guidance.  We look to people with the needed experience, the right training, the appropriate knowledge.  Sometimes they have a pedigree we’re looking for.  That is, MD, Ph.D., JD, CEO of this or that company, etc.  Sometimes they are famous because of their name or because of their accomplishments.  Sometimes they are simply people who have been placed in positions of authority.  The problem is – they’re not always right.  Sometimes they’re really not competent to adequately advise on the situations they’re speaking about.  Even worse is when the people in authority abuse that authority with lies and manipulation to deceive their followers.  And one of the means by which they do this is scare tactics.

      At about the end of President Obama’s first term, I watched a video by Christian apologist Dinesh D’Souza offering a frightening vision of what Obama’s plans for America were, according to D’Souza.  Supposedly, Obama was going to usher in socialism – lock, stock, and barrel.  Funny thing – four more years passed and there was no attempt to nationalize American industries, no talk of it, zero, zip, nada.  Scare tactics.  Was this the genuine belief of D’Sousa, or was it disingenuous hype, designed to move the electorate in another direction, for some self-motivated purposes?  Four years later, a wealth of evangelical leaders zealously advocated for the election of President Trump, presumably based on his support of pro-life policies, including the extremely important tasks of appointing judges who would support this world-view, as well as other conservative positions.  (While I didn’t vote for Donald Trump because of his profound character issues, I understood the importance of those issues).  But the manner in which some of these church leaders framed their support, I believe, gave impetus to their followers’ unconditional support of Trump, no matter how bad his behavior.  At least one Evangelical leader framed Donald Trump’s 2016 election as a “work of God”.   This same leader before the 2020 election warned that socialism would “come full force” if Joe Biden were elected.  President Trump’s speech the night before the Capitol riots was replete with all manner of hyperbolic fear-mongering.  Here’s a bit of that speech.  “If the Democrats are elected, all of your savings will be gone, your laws will be gone, your freedom will be gone……The socialists and Marxists will be in charge of our country……The democratic candidates will attack our heroes, destroy our economy, and betray you and your family and it will happen very quickly.”  When such prominent leaders posit these notions in such frightening ways, you can fully expect a great many of their followers to take extreme actions.  But caveat emptor!  People need to be much shrewder in their listening.  Have you heard of “confirmational bias”?  It’s where a person only listens (reads, pays heed) to those views and ideas they already believe in.  These people never let their existing world-view be challenged.  It scares them too much.  Of course, we all have biases, and we all nurture those biases.  I am hugely guilty of this.  But we all need to listen to the perspectives and viewpoints which are opposite ours.  Often, it may only confirm our views, while sometimes, if really open, it may alter or change our viewpoint altogether.

        Why is it that Fascists, Dictators, Communists, all try to control the media (or to assert that everything but what they say is ‘fake news’)?   Because to control the media is to be able to control the people.  How can one find the truth if the very facts are distorted by the media or whomever controls them?   Do I think that the “liberal media” sometimes distorts the truth?  I do, because I have seen them do it just by deciding what events/issues to cover, and which ones to ignore.  But what about Fox News.? I use to think that (in spite of their insistence of the purity of their journalism), that Fox was biased, but in a way that somewhat balanced the liberal media bias.  Today, I think their bias is worse than anything the mainstream media puts out.

      To be frank, I am very seriously disappointed in many of our present evangelical leaders.  So many seized upon the idea of Donald Trump as some kind of savior of the American way of life, some kind of “God -chosen man” who would protect all of our cherished Christian ideals.  But the church should never enter so deeply into the defense of a single candidate or even party.  Like it or not, there are many Christians who have been opposed to the Trump presidency, and all that he represents.   Billy Graham once warned of the dangers of the church becoming one with the Republican Party, saying that, “the hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.”  The most serious consequence however might be the loss of respect for people of faith and as well for certain valid conservative ideas and ideals due to the association of people of faith and conservative ideals with the person of Donald Trump.