But God bids us stand for the truth

2 Corinthians 13:8 For we must always stand for the truth.

First, a special request for prayer: Venezuela has the best opportunity for change in decades, through presidential elections this Sunday, July 28. The lead-up has been fraught with disappearances, thefts, and intimidation by the current government against the opposition. Yet an army of citizens are planning to risk everything by monitoring voting sites (see this article). PLEASE PRAY for their protection and for change in Venezuela that will allow millions of refugees to go back home to help rebuild their country. Thank you.

Back to my post:

I’ve done it, and perhaps you have too. An alarming email shows up in my Inbox, or a social media post catches my attention, and I forward or share it without checking the source or the information’s veracity. And later someone lets me know that it’s false. It’s misinformation, and I’ve become part of the web of lies circulating through our society.

I’ve learned, through chagrin and embarrassment, to stop long enough to check before I believe. To pause and verify before I forward.

This simple statement as we come to the end of 2 Corinthians, “We must always stand for the truth,” has challenged me to recommit to more responsible citizenship.

I invite you to consider doing this as well. In this age of “my truth” and “your truth,” let’s reaffirm our belief in truths that don’t shapeshift according to someone’s agenda. Let’s commit to being trustworthy.

Does it matter? Scripture says yes.

Here’s an interesting truth, that perhaps can serve as our starting place:

In the NIV, the word “truth” shows up 137 times; the word “lie” 226 times. This doesn’t count alternate ways of expressing these concepts. In the KJV, those numbers are “truth” 224 times; “lie” 280 times.

Does God care about truth?

Twisting the truth is nothing new. In John 8, Jesus uses the strongest possible language to condemn lying (John 8:44-46), yet people responded by claiming, repeatedly, that he was possessed by a demon. As you read Scripture, notice how often something like this happens. Wrongdoing is not very creative—it just changes its camouflage across time.

In the wake of the assassination attempt on President Trump, I mentioned to a friend I was fact-checking, since rumors and false statements were running rampant on social media. She asked me how to do that. There are many nonpartisan organizations whose people work hard to check facts for us. I usually go to FactCheck.org, AP, Reuters, PolitiFact, Snopes, or Washington Post, but there are others.

No single fact checking organization has time to cover everything. So, if you want to check a news article or a social media post or a speech, Google the headline or main content and see which fact checkers are working on that claim. You can also compare different fact-checking sites to see what they say.

One other practice I follow: If I discover that something I’ve passed on as truth is false, I let people to whom I sent it know that I found out it’s not true. That’s good, but how many of them already passed it on to their contacts? Much better to check BEFORE I send.

Another thing I do is read a variety of news sources: Newsmax AND the Washington Post AND historian Heather Cox Richardson’s daily Letter from an American, for example. I don’t want to get stuck in an information bubble, running the risk of being brainwashed by one angle on things or by the conspiracy theories so rampant on social media.

Why do I go to all this trouble? Because my first loyalty is to the Kingdom of God, who bids me always stand for the truth. We must be careful with whom and with what we align his holy name.

P.S. I expect pushback; that’s OK as long as it’s respectful and you fact check first. (Sigh. I’m an Enneagram 9, so conflict and confrontation are hard for me—including this post.)