Time-Tested Truth In A Season Of Spin

Besides the familiar ten commandments, there are 36 commands in the Torah to show hospitality to refugees and migrants--more than to observe the Sabbath or any other law.

Propaganda: The spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person. - Merriam-Webster dictionary

As followers of Jesus, our primary allegiance is to the worldwide, heaven-governed reign of God on earth. Wherever communities of faith proclaim Jesus as Lord (rather than Caesar) they see themselves as resident aliens with only a secondary interest in the politics of the nation in which they live.

Nevertheless, they may have much interest in local or national policies that significantly help or harm the lives of their neighbors across the street or around the world. Whenever God-followers see opportunities to help nudge such policies in a kingdom-ward direction they are motivated to respond prayerfully and decisively. Issues pertaining to racial discrimination, war-making, a lack of educational opportunities and inadequate worker protections come to mind.

What Jesus would have us avoid is blind partisanship or any spirit of the kind of nationalist supremacy and pride we observe in the political conventions currently occupying our attention.

Political parties are experts at spin, at using hype, hyperbole and cleverly packaged propaganda to portray themselves in the best possible light. As informed citizens, and especially as followers of Jesus, we look elsewhere for help in forming our conclusions and making our choices. 

Unfortunately, all major parties are materialistic, nationalistic and militaristic at their core in ways that are foreign to the spirit and teachings of Jesus. So turning away from the hype on both sides, we examine the actual history and policy records of candidates and their platforms. With regard to their personal integrity and morality, we look at the record of their lives in light of time-tested truths such as found in the Ten Commandments and taught in Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.

We also rely on proven, though always imperfect, news sources like the Associated Press and a variety of reputable newspapers, and less on sources like Breitbart News (far right) or the Daily Kos (far left). On issues associated with the COVID pandemic, we listen to health experts like Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Dr. Francis Collins over a multitude of other voices on Twitter and the internet. When it comes to environmental issues and the effects of climate change, we put greater trust in the National Geographic Society, NOAA, NASA, the Academy of Scientists, the American Meteorological Society, the Audubon Society and scores of other time-tested sources over the Koch Brothers or Fox News. 

When it comes to the critical issue of abortion, we note that better education and more readily available healthcare do more to reduce abortions than any legislation criminalizing it. For the record, we note there has been a decline in recorded numbers of abortions ever since the Roe v. Wade spike, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. And while we decry the termination of any form of human life at any stage of development, we humbly recognize that the question of exactly when a prenatal human life becomes a human person, a living soul, has been debated by theologians for centuries.

Meanwhile, we strongly promote pro-life policies that seek to eliminate war-making and other forms of violence and which offer desperately needed help to the millions of children already born who are suffering and dying every day from malnutrition and from lack of healthcare. We also seek to create a pro-life culture that opposes using abortion as a convenient form of birth control, while sympathizing with a parent supporting the use of a morning after pill in the case of a 14-year-old daughter who has been raped. 

In the interest of truth telling, we will also note that two thirds of recorded legal abortions happen within the first eight weeks of pregnancy, 92 percent within the first 13 weeks, and only 1.2 percent at  21 weeks or later.* I state this not to justify abortion but simply to clarify when and at what stage most are occurring. 

We will also acknowledge our inconsistency in how we regard prenatal life, in that we still don't register or officially enter names of the pre-born in our congregational rosters, nor count them as legal citizens in our family records or national census. Nor do we memorialize, write obituaries about, or provide grave markers for our miscarriages, much as we lament the loss of any developing human life, precious beyond belief. And we still only celebrate the date of our birth as marking the beginning of our life rather the date of our conception. 

As in all issues, people living by the rule of heaven seek the will of heaven above all else, and give careful attention to the words of Jesus and the prophets as a guide for their life and their convictions..

* the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)