Truth and trousers...

Spurgeon (as he makes clear) was actually quoting a popular proverb when he said in one of his sermons “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on”. Personally I prefer the version that replaces boots with trousers (it alliterates better). So pervasive and noticeable are the presence and power of lies, that essentially the same thing has been often repeated. Some trace it back to a comment by Virgil in the Aeneid (Book 4, line 174 - ‘Rumour, than whom no other evil thing is faster’, written about 25BC) , but in reality the problem of lies goes way further back than that. As recorded in Genesis 3:4, God (who cannot lie) had said X, the devil, represented by a serpent, had said Y, Eve (with tragic consequences) went with Y. Words have meaning, meaning drives behaviour, behaviour has consequences. Lies (essentially ‘wrong’ words) usually have bad consequences. But while lies are obviously nothing new, what is new (or at least newish) is their increased speed and greater range.

We need to look no further for examples than the online purveyors of conspiracy theories and other assorted lies. Alex Jones, the Infowars founder and fast-talking online host, used his platform to repeat again and again that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, in which 26 were killed (20 of them children) was a hoax. To support this assertion, he made up various supporting claims. These lies had real-world effects on those impacted by the shooting, prompting them to take him to court in civil actions. And it turns out that truth, a bit like gravity, has a way (usually) of eventually asserting itself. Jones’ claims, or more specifically the harms caused by them, were examined by two juries of his peers, one in Texas and one in Connecticut. Having calmly considered the evidence put to them in a court of law (albeit in civil rather than criminal courts), with all the rhetoric and bluster that Jones and his ilk routinely employ stripped away, both juries found Jones and his claims not to be credible and awarded substantial damages against him. It is revealing that while the Connecticut verdict was being read out in court, Jones was online mocking the jury’s decision and seeking to continue to make money from his lies (something he was particularly good at). To date, the plaintiffs in the Jones cases have yet to see much in the way of hard cash. He has sought to exploit various legal means of avoiding responsibility (or at least avoid paying out to the victims of his lies). But over a relatively short period of time his lies reached millions, compounding the distress of those who had already suffered at the hands of a madman with a gun. Sadly, his lying ways, and his use of the combination of the internet and lies to make money, both continue and have spawned (or at least emboldened) a number of imitators on this side of the Atlantic.

On the 22^nd May 2017, 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in the Manchester Arena in the UK were murdered in a terrorist bomb explosion. Many others were injured, including Martin Hibbert who was paralysed from the waist down and his daughter Eve who suffered brain damage. But Richard Hall, a former engineer and TV producer who claimed he was acting as a journalist, believed (as he told a court) that there “was no bomb” and that “no one was genuinely injured in the attack". So he took it upon himself to track down survivors, seeking to interview and video them, in a bid to show that the (true) narrative of a terrorist bombing causing loss of life and severe injury was a “lie”. He streamed and sold various DVD’s and produced a book promulgating his “theories”, seeking to monetise them. The Hibberts (again, not the state in the form of the prosecuting authorities) brought a claim of harassment against him, and last week a judge found in their favour (the full judgement is now available online here), saying among other things that Hall’s “course of conduct was a negligent, indeed reckless, abuse of media freedom”. Hall had treated the statements of witnesses, experts, authorities and indeed courts “as of no value”, and in the name of “journalism” invaded the privacy of the Hibberts causing distress. Hall was not only found to have harassed the Hibberts, but, the judge said, should have known as any ordinary person using common sense would have known, that he was distressing them. The case has yet to be settled, and it will be interesting too see what the judge considers the proper level of damages to be. But in the time that Hall’s offending videos have been available online (and his DVDs and book are still available through his website), tens of thousands (or more) have seen his material, again multiplying the distress of those already scarred by the bombing itself. The actual numbers of those engaging with Hall’s version of reality (actually an unreality) are unknowable. But the harm that he perpetrated, or at least a small proportion of it, was revealed in the legal proceedings. If this judgement is the turning point that some analysts have suggested, maybe accountability has arrived at last, and truth, rather than lies and conspiracy theories, is making a comeback. We shall see.

Of course there has always been one place to find truth, indeed the truth. The trouble is we tend to find it difficult to identify truth even when it is standing right before us. How else do we explain Pilate’s famous question “What is truth?” when it, or rather he, was standing right in front of him? It is almost as though humanity is conditioned to prefer lies. Hence Spurgeon’s contention, now amplified by modern technology.

The fall and rise (ups and downs) and rise…….

While it is not inevitable, life can be a bit of a downer. And no matter how far we rise, what is inevitable for each and every one of us is our eventual mortal demise. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Which is why, by and large, we don’t. In this culture we usually neither think nor talk about death. And when it arrives, increasingly ways are found to avoid, or at least distract us, from “it”. More than a few daytime TV ads offer alternatives to “trad” funerals. Funded (probably) by your over-50’s life insurance policy (so you needn’t worry about being a “burden”), one can now opt for a “direct cremation”, and your loved ones can remember you howsoever they wish (or not), without any “fuss”, and certainly without reminding themselves of their (or your) mortality.

But on my morning walk this morning (nothing excessive, just to the paper shop), I happened to get thinking about a number of folk that are no longer with us. Some were people that I didn’t know personally. This was prompted in part because I watched the “Concert for George” recently. Organised by friends and colleagues of George Harrison, former Beatle and devotee of eastern mysticism, Harrison grew up about a mile from where I’m typing. Despite prodigious talent, worldwide fame, a considerable fortune (his estate was worth about £100M when he died), and the love and affection of his family and many friends, it’s not clear he was a man who really found what he was looking for. He died in 2001, in a house belonging to someone else, albeit surrounded by his family and Hare Krishna chants. After his death his family released his final “message to the world”: “Everything else can wait, but the search for God cannot wait, and love one another”. It was to George’s credit that at least he had been looking.

Another recent reminder of life’s biggest reality has been the sudden death of Alex Salmond. This is a name known to everyone in Scotland, most people in England, and not a few beyond. He was a former First Minister of Scotland, leader of the Scottish National Party (and beyond that Scottish nationalists in general), and general pest and thorn in the side of UK governments of every political stripe. He died last Saturday from heart attack, having made a speech, far from home, at a conference in North Macedonia. While a man with many political opponents, the subsequent tributes have shown that he was much respected and had many friends across the political spectrum. I have no idea what his opinions were on religious matters. Interestingly, he one described himself as a “Church of Scotland adherent”. So, not a believer, not a Christian, not even a Presbyterian, simply an “adherent” of one of Scotland’s mainline, and declining, protestant denominations. I’m not sure I really know what that means. Maybe that was the idea. He famously fell out with fellow nationalists in the Scottish Government, was subject of various inquiries, and was cleared of criminal charges (including charges of rape and sexual assault). While found not guilty (and “not proven” on one of the charges) by a jury after only six hours of deliberation, the trial did reveal patterns of behaviour that even his own defence counsel accepted might be construed as “inappropriate” (while falling short of criminality). But the trial, and the political and governmental machinations that surrounded it, revealed an unpleasant side to Scottish political life at the highest level. This has probably contributed to the demise of Salmond’s former party, the SNP. And while he was, and obviously felt, vindicated by his criminal trial, he was still seeking legal redress at the time of his death.

Perhaps more poignantly, he was speaking in Macedonia about democracy. But it was democracy that had delivered his most stinging defeat (while also bizarrely marking his biggest achievement). He successfully persuaded the Cameron UK government to hold a referendum on Scottish independence, and even got to choose the question on the ballot. And yet the people, by a convincing margin (much wider than in the Brexit referendum), rejected his view and voted to remain part of the United Kingdom. If all political careers end in failure (to misquote Enoch Powell), then you might have thought that to come relatively close to achieving a lifetime goal, see it dashed democratically by your own people (he was a nationalist after all), and then watch its likelihood recede even further because of the missteps and incompetence of your successors, would have been crushing. But by all accounts Salmond remained up for the struggle. Not “no” for him. He was ready to go again. But then he unexpectedly ran out of time. There are many who are shocked, and are left reflecting on the meaning of it all. One wonders how long it will be before their minds return to mundane and mortal matters, and they avert them once again from what is perhaps the most pressing of issues.

But I’ve known lots of others, not superstars or elite politicians, who have looked (or indeed not looked) and found the answer to our obvious mortality. And it is certainly not to ignore it. Over the years we’ve had various Bible study groups meeting in our home. And, over the years, some of the folk who we met with weekly, have died. In a number of cases I still walk past their former homes; I’m often reminded of them. All of them have left a gap of course, particularly for their immediate families, but also for that wider circle of which we were a part. And, along with their families we have grieved. The experience is inevitably difficult and challenging. And yet the folk I’m thinking of were Christian folk. I don’t mean that in the sense that they belonged to a certain culture, attended particular meetings, assented to particular religious propositions. What I mean is that they actually knew someone who had died (in a particularly gruesome manner), and yet returned shortly thereafter to life. When he eventually left our immediate vicinity he promised that he had not merely escaped death, but had overcome it. His claim was that those of us who knew him would be beneficiaries of what he had accomplished and share in this victory. Because of the culture that we are now all embedded in, this all reads like bizarre nonsense. Mystical and mysterious at best, deceptive and dangerous at the worst. But that is more apparent than real. What I have seen is the transformative power of the life and death of Jesus Christ time after time, in part if not yet completely.

Thinking about the moment of death is, I think, no more attractive to the Christian (the “Christ follower”) than it is for anyone else. And yet, emptied of its power to terrify and paralyse, death and its aftermath do bear thinking about. Because after the inevitable fall (if fall it is), there is now for those in Christ an equally inevitable, but much more comforting, rise in prospect. Thinking about life and death needn’t be any kind of a downer.