Confronting A Pandemic of "Myth-Information"

In our grasp for certainty we are prone to embrace myth.  

The late Don Jacobs, a church leader who spent much of his adult life in Africa, told the story of some missionaries trying to enlighten people who believed fatal diseases like malaria were caused by evil spirits. 

Their approach was simple. Just convince people it was actually mosquitos that transmitted malaria, and that there were concrete ways people could reduce the mosquito population and their risk of infection. Thus they believed people would no longer rely on magical rituals prescribed by their village healers, their so-called "witch doctors." 

Many of their listeners were impressed by this basic lesson in science. But a persistent question remained. "Which evil spirits are responsible for determining why mosquitos attack some people and not others?" They were not convinced that this was entirely a matter of chance, but believed there had to be some kind of deeper reasons, some darker explanations, that scientific facts alone could not provide.

That's where myth comes in, beliefs based on longstanding ancestral wisdom and legendary history that serve to reinforce the world view of a community of people, and to explain the practices and beliefs embedded in their culture. Every ethnic or racial group, every nation, and every tribe has such fundamental, underlying and seemingly irrefutable kinds of deeply held beliefs. We may all be incurably "spiritual," even cult-like, in this sense.

This certainly includes members of religious communities, of course. World views and ways of life are profoundly shaped by the stories and accumulated wisdom in our scriptures and our age-old stories and faith convictions, all of which have a profound impact on the ways we live, believe and behave. In that way, myth and faith are cousins, two expressions of a common need to make sense of dimensions of life that cannot be readily known or proven by direct observation or by scientific study.

My own faith convictions lead me to a belief in a universe ultimately brought into being by a gracious God too vast to be ever be fully comprehended by mortals like ourselves. My faith grounds me in the belief that the world is full of wonder and mystery, but not devoid of meaning or purpose. My faith informs me that a Supreme Being wills an ultimate restoration of wholeness and harmony and justice for all, and that people everywhere are called to a life of redemption and shalom, in which nothing is marred and nothing is missing. My faith motivates me to pledge allegiance to Jesus as the crucified and resurrected healer and redeemer of a lost and deluded humanity and to acknowledge my own capacity for delusion. And my faith is enriched by the insights of a multitude of prophets, apostles and fellow believers, including reformers like Menno Simons, who wrote the following summation of his scripture-based beliefs:

“True evangelical faith is of such a nature it cannot lie dormant, but spreads itself out in all kinds of righteousness and fruits of love; it dies to flesh and blood; it destroys all lusts and forbidden desires; it seeks, serves and fears God in its inmost soul; it clothes the naked; it feeds the hungry; it comforts the sorrowful;  it shelters the destitute; it aids and consoles the sad; it does good to those who do it harm; it serves those that harm it; it prays for those who persecute it; it teaches, admonishes and judges us with the Word of the Lord; it seeks those who are lost; it binds up what is wounded; it heals the sick; it saves what is strong (sound); it becomes all things to all people. The persecution, suffering and anguish that come to it for the sake of the Lord’s truth have become a glorious joy and comfort to it.”

While I want to be humble enough to recognize my own vulnerability to "myth-information," I am nevertheless committed to living by a set of beliefs I find compelling and are about a level of truth that goes beyond anything for which science or reason alone can provide answers.

And when it comes to countering the barrage of misinformation and propaganda to which we are subjected, I'm aware that simply offering people more rational arguments or more accurate information alone may not be effective. The fact is that individuals who are loyal supporters of a given nation, charismatic leader, party or people group tend to be committed believers, religiously and "spiritually" motivated to live by and to defend their deeply imbedded beliefs at all costs.

We may label them "myth-guided" or "myth-informed" (as we may all be to some degree), but to assume we can change others' minds through reasoning alone will likely prove futile. 

I remember a professor in one of my counseling classes saying, "Information is the solution only to the extent that ignorance is the problem." In other words, core beliefs and behaviors are not easily changed by even the most logical arguments, because they are deeply embedded in the heart, not simply in the rational mind.

To reach the heart, we need to demonstrate a quality of genuine care and respect for those with whom we disagree. We need to value, and learn to listen to, our fellow human beings and not just try to prove we are "right." In other words, to not simply defend what we believe to be God's "will," but demonstrate with our love and with our life God's "way."

As in the words of a favorite text (emphases mine):

I will show you a still more excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.  (1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13, NRSV)

For me, these inspired words embody a faith-informed rather than merely a "myth-informed" set of truths.