One day, President Obama says "Michael and I" in a speech, thus "proving" (to some bloggers, at least) that he is, in fact, homosexual and Michelle is really a man named Michael (not that a very tired man misread a teleprompter at a minor state function.)
Another day, a Christian Mets player uses the outdated term "lifestyle" while trying to answer questions respectfully about how he feels about a homosexual activist visiting spring training, and thus revealing (to those who want to be angry) that he is really a hateful homophobe (not that these reporters already know his beliefs and are trying to entrap him).
This never-ending back-and-forth game we play is turning us into a country of what the Bible calls fools.
Two stories I saw in the last week are prime examples...
One is an older Oprah Winfrey sound bite from 2013 that's still being passed around. In it she says the following:
"As long as there are people who still — there’s a whole generation – I say this, you know, I said this, you know, for apartheid South Africa, I said this for my own, you know, community in the south — there are still generations of people, older people, who were born and bred and marinated in it, in that prejudice and racism, and they just have to die."
Here is the clip (start at 2:56):
The headline from bloggers I've seen is literally
Oprah Winfrey: Old white people “just have to die”
or this:
Outrage After Oprah Says White People “Need To Die”
Are you kidding me? Can you actually watch this and not get what she is really trying to say here? Of course you can't, unless you are just trying to pull something out of context to inflame negative opinions (even hate) people already have for her.
I shouldn't have to say that she is obviously saying that these generations who supported Apartheid and Jim Crow are not likely to change, so they will have to die out before their influence is completely gone.
It's not like she is advocating releasing a bunch of wolves to go after them like the nasty Republican Congressman from Alaska who wants to kill homeless people.
Oh, you didn't hear about that? That's the headline:
Rep. Don Young's solution for the "homeless problem": wolves
or this:
Don Young Suggests Wolves Could Help Get Rid Of Homeless People
The worst part of these headlines is that, unlike the Oprah headlines that come from sites that are explicitly "conservative," these are from CBS and the Huffington Post, which are supposed to be legitimate news sites.
What on earth was Rep. Young saying? Well, if you actually read the comments, he wasn't talking about solving the homeless problem at all. It was from a discussion on whether wolves ought to be taken off of the list of protected endangered species. He was defending his constituents' desire to be able to legally defend themselves against the threat of wolves to their safety, which is a real concern in Alaska. (Just this past summer while we were in Kobuk, we had to send our VBS kids back home by a specific route in order to avoid a wolf that had been spotted lurking nearby).
Here is the quote:
"'How many of you have got wolves in your district?' Young asked the other lawmakers on the panel. 'None. Not one.'
"They haven't got a d--n wolf in their whole district," he added. 'I'd like to introduce them in your district. If I introduced them in your district, you wouldn't have a homeless problem anymore.'"
Was it insensitive? Sure. But if you take two seconds to think about what he actually meant, you realize that he wasn't devaluing the lives of the homeless at all but rather making a point about the danger wolves can be to people. He was using hyperbole to shock people into realizing that if the people in these districts had to deal with wolves like the people of Alaska, they would realize that they could be a real menace.
But the headline is that he was trying to offer a heartless solution to the homeless problem. As both a regular citizen and a person with a journalism degree, I can say definitively that that is utterly pathetic journalism.
My point is not to defend either Oprah or Rep. Young. My point is that our national dialogue is being dominated by fools and mockers (as described in the book of Proverbs in the Bible).
"Fools find no pleasure in understanding
but delight in airing their own opinions."
- Proverbs 18:2
"Whoever conceals hatred with lying lips
and spreads slander is a fool."
- Proverbs 10:18
These fools are not looking to understand anyone, but instead looking for a way to air their opinions that "Liberals are the real racists" or "Rep. Young is what you get for voting Republican." They are concealing their hate (barely) behind a guise of reporting the news, spreading slander like a fool.
A fool is someone who "hates knowledge" (Proverbs 1:22), because he is complacent in what he already knows (Proverbs 1:32) and thinks his way is right, so he doesn't have to listen to anyone (Proverbs 12:15).
So how should we react? First, we need to see through this game of "gotcha" and try to really understand something when someone is trying to charge up our emotions. Secondly, we need to recognize the people who play this game as fools, and take the Bible's advice...
"Stay away from a fool,
for you will not find knowledge on their lips."
-Proverbs 14:7
And finally, don't be a fool yourself: don't write this garbage, don't share this garbage, and don't be pulled into this garbage.
As for the question of whether we should try to correct the people who do write and share these things, I will leave you with a passage of Scripture that could be titled, The Dilemma of Internet Comment Boards:
"Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes."
- Proverbs 26:4-5
More Proverbs about what it means to be a fool.
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