Fakey McClickBait

2016 has rocked our GenX world as one pop icon after another has died and left a huge vacancy. For me, the moment of ENOUGH ALREADY didn't come until the death of Debbie Reynolds, a day after Carrie Fisher's passing. I truly thought it was some kind of bad joke when I woke up and read the headline, and my brain struggled with the seeming unlikelihood of it all - especially in light of the "fake news" that's been outed after the election. A small corner of my brain hoped it was another tabloid-esque false report even as I knew that if it's splashed all over BBC, CNN, Washington Post and FoxNews, it must be true.

This morning I caught an article on the fake news of 2016, and it got me thinking about how vulnerable we all are. The internet keeps us connected 24/7 with each other and the world, which has its light and dark side, as most things do. The light side:  knowing of injustice that we can then act upon, sharing pictures of family far away, sending email letters and the ease of forwarding interesting articles, recipes, and ideas, and collaborating in all kinds of pursuits. The dark side:  addiction to information, online gaming, and porn. And we have to add to that list the ease of being manipulated by biased news reporting and fake news sites. It's all a bit much, isn't it?

If only all fake news were as easy to spot.

How can we tell what is real, what is true? CNN has just as much bias as FoxNews. Facebook is a veritable breeding ground for manipulation and misdirection, where slanted "news" and misreporting in the guise of memes spreads and stokes the fires of the already-pissed-off who then turn around and share the meme of incorrect data, misinterpreted data, or blatantly falsified data (whether that data be statistics, quotes, or images).

Almost makes you want to unplug and start living in the real world, doesn't it?

But the "real world" isn't a safe harbor, either. The adversary likes to peddle half-truths that are very attractive. I suppose you could call it "spiritual click-bait." No one would sin if we could see it for what it is and for what it does to our relationship with God and each other. Advertising only works if we are sold something we think we need, that will be good for us, even if it kills us.

When we are lured into a half-truth, our own vision of the good starts to become tainted, and before long we do what we shouldn't do, or we don't do what we should. In the moment it may seem harmless enough, but if we are truly honest with ourselves, we can look back and see the path that has led deeper into the darkness through sin. 

But the Good News is that we have a God who doesn't leave us to our own devices once we've gotten tangled up in the lies and behaviors that turn us away from God's love. The Word became Flesh, taking on our humanity in all its complexity and fake newsish-ness. Maybe Jesus didn't have to contend with fake news sites and Russian hacking, but war, injustice and tyranny were already old hat for the human race by the time he was born. 

In many ways, absolutely nothing has changed as far as the human race is concerned. We are still lying, cheating, killing, maiming, torturing, starving and emotionally brutalizing each other. We have fancier technology with which to do all of this, but really, the adversary is up to his old tricks, just a little more updated to human ingenuity. 

But like that article says of weeding out fake news, there are ways to combat the spiritual click-bait. We have been given clear moral principles through the Judeo-Christian scriptures, which are the Word of God, not some random collection of human writings. Have you read the scriptures? There's a lot of bad-assery and also horrific sinning going on there. It's not a pretty picture. Jesus's genealogy is enough to make a soap opera producer blush. But the story is the same throughout the Hebrew scriptures and Christian New Testament:  God saves. He doesn't leave us to wallow in the spiritual click-bait and the aftermath of making the wrong choices again and again. 

We've been given the Beatitudes and the Ten Commandments. We've been given the law of Love from Love:  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and strength, and love each other as you love yourself. Within these are to be found the truth of how we are to live with God and each other. Jesus didn't come just as a rebel or a prophet or a nice guy. He came to die for us, to remit the sins of humanity throughout time, so that we could enter into a relationship with our Father and become divinized. The more we enter into these truths through Jesus's love, the more we will understand who we are meant to be, free of addictions and false hopes. Free to recognize spiritual click-bait when we see it, and to repent of it.