Truth Does not Need Dishonest Embellishment
January 6, 2021, is now a ruined day. That was the day my parents would have celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary. Instead, dad was being transferred from the telemetry to ICU with Covid, and the White House was being stormed by an odd bunch of protesters.
While those protestors should not be excused for what they did—it was wrong and illegal—it is understandable that they would have thought it was no big deal. After all violent riots had been going on all across the land for months. An entire section of downtown Seattle was occupied and ruled by protestors. In retrospect, it was extremely foolish to think that protests on the right would be treated similarly to those of the left.
An article published in the Washington Post suggested that the January 6 riot was a “Christian Revolt.” It’s a lie and an irresponsible one.
Learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:17)
The January 6 riot was wrong and illegal. So were the riots that occurred in the summer of 2020 across the nation. The Biblical concept of justice requires just laws applied justly. The statutes against rioting are just. They have not been applied justly. Every citizen should be subject to the same laws and the same consequence.
One of the horrible religious/political ploys common today is to find an event that is generally identified as wrong or objectionable and then find a way to associate your “enemies” with it. It happens constantly in the news media—on both sides.
These are examples of just such intellectual dishonesty: the January 6 riot was a “Christian Revolt.” Paul Pelosi’s attacker was a “right-wing nut job.”
The unbelieving world does this all the time. However, we must make sure that we do not do it—but we often do.
These are just examples of how we do this with one another. Not all Calvinists are evil people. Neither are all Arminians. We owe a debt of gratitude both to the Wesleys and Whitfield. At this moment they are together enjoying the blessings of the same heaven.
As fundamentalists, we tend to call all evangelicals compromisers. Not all Evangelicals are compromisers in the pure sense of the word. There was a time when this was basically true, but most of this generation of evangelicals are completely uninformed regarding the nature of biblical separation. “Compromiser” is probably not the correct word for most. Of course, biblical separation is still essential.
We must stand upon and fight for biblical principles. We must declare sin as sin and not be afraid to call sinning people sinners, but we must do it honestly. For instance, homosexuality is a sin, but not all gay people are pedophiles. There are lots of ways we can step over the line of truth in our assessment of sinful culture.
The plain truth is enough. Adding false associations and exaggerations to accusations will only undermine the truth, not help it. We must speak justly and accurately, even if others do not.
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, But those who deal truthfully are His delight. (Proverbs 12:22)