Post-truth
14 Dec 2016
The Oxford dictionary has declared “post-truth” to be its international word of the year. According to the Guardian newspaper:
“Defined by the dictionary as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”, editors said that use of the term “post-truth” had increased by around 2,000 % in 2016 compared to last year. The spike in usage, it said, is “in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States.”
For some, particularly those who were defeated in elections this year, the most worrying aspect of our “post-truth” society has been the rise in fake news. There are an abundance of websites now which deliberately publish hoaxes, propaganda and disinformation. They are designed to mislead and to promote a particular political viewpoint or candidate.
We shouldn’t be naive. One of the reasons for an emphasis on “post truth” and “fake news” is to soften the defeat of those who have lost elections. It is a way to criticise their opponents - another way of saying “if the public had really known all the facts, they wouldn’t have voted the way they did”. It is slightly patronising.
Yet even recognising that aspect to “post-truth”, we can accept there is truth to the assessment of our culture as “post truth”! So how do we respond? It may seem very discouraging to us as we seek to point people to the one who is “the way, the truth, and the life”. Yet there are reasons to be encouraged by the fact that our “post-truth” culture is being recognised and discussed.
Since the fall, we have always lived in a “post-truth” world. What is beginning to be recognised is what Jesus himself said. He is the truth, he came to reveal God to us, and to bring us back to God - but he was rejected.
In the parable he told about the rich man and Lazarus Jesus made the point that even if a man was to rise from the dead, people would not believe what God says. Our bias now is to disbelieve God. At the start of Romans we are told that God has made it abundantly clear that he exists, and is worthy of all glory - yet we deliberately turn away from that truth and worship the creation. Sin has made us “post-truth” and means we choose “fake news” over the truth God speaks.
In the last century, the American pastor and evangelist Francis Schaeffer recognised where our society was heading. He saw the rise of extreme relativism. He noticed that in his culture of the 1960’s “the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute”. This is even truer today. He called on Christians to stand firm believing and proclaiming what he described as the “true truth” of God’s word. He wrote these words -
“Truth always carries with it confrontation…Loving confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong.”
Our most important response is to be convinced ourselves of the “true truth” of God’s word. God has spoken, and he never lies. God has acted in history in public ways of clear historical record, and we should be unashamed to believe that. The reason we are Christians is not first and foremost because of how it makes us feel, or because of a particular personal experience we may have had (wonderful as those things are) - our faith is rooted in truth. We trust because God has acted. There are reasons for our faith.
One of the reasons why we believe “fake news” stories and respond to appeals to emotion and personal belief is because we want what is said to be true. The gospel is the ultimate “good news” story, and contains “great and precious promises”. However, we do not need to spin it, or switch off our critical faculties. God has shown himself to be trustworthy in the true truth of what he has done in history.
It is good news that people are beginning to be concerned about post-truth. It shows a desire for true truth, and real news we can rely on. Part of our task in proclaiming Christ is to show that what we all desire, God has provided.
We also need to make sure we are not slipping back to think in “post-truth” ways. This will always be a battle, as Christ continues to renew our minds. One feature of a “post-truth” culture is the attitude that “my ignorance is as good as your knowledge” - shown in a distrust and rejection of “experts”. Of course, experts can be biased and use their position to distort opinions.
However, God wants our minds renewed by the truth of his word. Unlike human experts he is always right, and he is loving - he wants to rule us for our own good and his glory. Are we open to that? Are we teachable? Do we recognise our inherent bias - that left to ourselves we don’t know the truth about God, and that though we may know Christ there is still our flesh which doesn’t want to submit to the truth about God and what it means to live with Christ as Lord?
2016 has been the year of “post-truth” and “fake news”. But so has 2015 and 2014…..all the way back to the first year when Adam disobeyed God in the garden. However, from that moment on there has also been the “true truth” of God and his gospel promises to believe and rest your life on. Nothing has changed!