Asserting
that something is fake implies that there might be something that is authentic.
Fake news complicating our lives matches perfectly with today’s world of 0.666
truths and ½ truths.
In
Proverbs 8:8 we read that within the words of wisdom there is “nothing is
twisted/perverted or crooked”. On the other hand, we like to tell things
slant. I borrow that line from Emily Dickinson, but I’m not using it the way
she did.
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.
What
Dickinson means is that in order for (already confused) people to grasp the
truth it needs to come at them in doses, “a little slant”. She’s really saying
something similar to what Jesus said when he told the disciples that though
there was much more he’d like to say to them, they aren’t quite ready for it.
Even using parables…
Bread
crumbs vs Blinders. One way
of telling the truth slant is meant to leave little bread crumbs so that if
somebody wants to follow them all the way up to the full truth they can get
there. But the other way of telling it slant is the way of blinders on a horse.
Where you only want your audience to focus on a certain slice of the truth but
keep them blind to the others. This is the way often employed in politics,
social media, and click-bait articles – half-truth and selective-truth.
Dickinson
was adamant that we must “tell the whole truth”. So was Jesus. That is the key.
We must learn how to effectively “tell it slant”, not crooked! in order for
people to finally grasp it all. A biblical example of this is the prophet
Nathan confronting King David in his adultery. Much like the Seventh-day
Adventist Christian in our culture today, he could not bluntly go up to the
king and tell him that he was an adulterer. He had to do it in the form of a
story. He had to “tell it slant”.
“Truth
in Breadcrumbs” but not “Truth with Blinders”. Got that?
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