Better Left Unsaid – Axiom 2

“Hell is brought about by conscious lies”

In the film ‘Better Left Unsaid’ four axioms were introduced to help us make progress through the fug of our cultural moment.  This is the second of these.

Both the extreme political Left and extreme political Right deal in conscious lies. The Left promotes Groupthink and scapegoating – tending towards the outlawing of unacceptable ideas and those who will not agree with the imposed theory.  The Right deals in moral and ethnic Purity – tending towards the avoidance of individual and national corruption, and preservation of the superior individual/example.  As a result, recent Western history, and the 20th Century in particular, is drenched in blood. The Political and Digital Media landscape is now being drenched with digital blood. We are in a self-created Digital hell.

When asked in July ‘21 about the impending US August withdrawal from Afghanistan, Joe Biden was specifically asked about the strength of the Afghan National Army, the integrity of the Government and the likelihood of the Taliban overwhelming Kabul in short order. He answered confidently that the events we have recently witnessed were highly unlikely or impossible. Assuming US intelligence was good (it was) and his Advisors did their jobs (seemingly), Biden chose to promote the idea that withdrawal of troops was beneficial and safe. Hell for many has followed Biden’s conscious lies. 

What I have discovered over the last few years is that to some extent the church constituencies (and Church communities) that I have belonged to are also in the process of believing conscious lies.  I don’t mean just at a ‘heart level’ – I.e. in personal decision making. At an institutional and practical level the western church has become dependent on favourable circumstances in which to operate.  We have generally picked the ‘low-hanging’ fruit of evangelism by reaching out to mums, kids and the elderly. We have replaced deep-hearted discipleship and proximate justice with regular attendance at service and institutional membership. We have enjoyed the fading blessings of post-WW2 relative peacefulness in Western Europe and a place in the public dialogue. In this time we have adopted church growth practices and business models to embellish our repertoires, fill our programmes and exhaust our opportunities to look busy. And we have rejoiced at every convert as the flow of converts has dried to a trickle, our kids ministries have emptied, our YP’s work has dwindled and we have lost the confidence of speaking boldly an imaginatively in the public square. The conscious lies we have believed are numerous – but they are all gilded with the overlay of being ‘good things’ done ‘for the Lord’. 

In many cases, of course, real Christians have been genuinely reaching out to those in need and seeing wonderful conversions of friends and and neighbours and acquaintances. These ARE good things. But for the majority of cases I have witnessed the conscious lies are prevalent and subtle.  But here I must change the language slightly in order to illustrate my point – for Churches that have some version of ‘speaking/living the truth’ in their strap line the concept of lying can be triggering to them. 

How are the conscious lies found in church contexts? 

Convenient Truths

By ‘convenient truths’ I mean the kind of meme-thinking and foreshortening of complex theological ideas that equate to half truths and unhelpful mis-teachings. The kind of popular concept I have come across is ‘God never gives me things I can’t handle’.  This kind of nonsense is all over social media and is eroding the beauty, subtlety and depth of real Christianity, and it prevents a student from learning and exploring the deeper truth by providing an inadequate hook on which to hang any new ideas they might hear. 

I also mean an inadequate and somewhat boring set of Apologetics that limits debate to a certain set of triggering topics which are returned to regularly – Abortion, Creation (particularly one version, e.g. ‘Young Earth), Sexuality. These are ‘convenient’ in the sense that within these constituencies they are ‘done and dusted’, there is a tacit arrogance about their inclusion because it makes the ‘truth’ look powerful. But dealing in apologetics this way doesn’t scratch where people are itching, neither does it display the full range of attractive and beautiful spectra that the truth encompasses. I’ve listened to too many talks and sermons where complex ethics are reduced to simplistic arguments for the sake of fitting a 20minute talk agenda. 

Acceptable Sins

Grumbling, Short-tempered, Letting people off instead of forgiveness, Selfishness, bearing grudges, brash and rude behaviour.  One of the most obvious ‘Acceptable Sins’ that is prevalent in the church community is…  having acceptable sins. There are some deeply unacceptable sins for which a swift and harsh response is required and cancellation ensues – these are commonly adultery and theft. The problem here is not that these aren’t sins, they are. It is that these are treated a great deal more harshly – and unhelpfully – than other sins; especially ones that lead up to the great failures. Theft is borne out of love of money as a make-weight for other feelings of self-pity, jealousy, or simple desire.  Much is made of a great moral failure, but little is done or said about the circumstances which gave rise to it in a community that is overlooking minor or acceptable misdemeanours. 

All sin divides. All sin stains.  The kind of community that stifles these acceptable sins effectively is able to be both intimate and proximate enough to one another that we can call out minor moral failure in ourselves and others with equal ferocity, mercy and friendship.  The alternative is shallow Bible studies and prayer meetings where a tepid intellectualism passes for depth and the deep motivations of our minds and hearts are allowed to roam unhindered – a religiously pleasant, domestically ordered Hell.

Ingrained Complacency

I’ve spoken to enough Church members over recent years who’ve spent time on Church committees and realise that they are effectively time-wasting. This is either because decisions have been effectively made before the meeting by those ‘higher up’ and the lengthy discussions are merely ways of ratification; or because they are not discipled to think and speak ‘theologically’ about the decisions and therefore feel technically overwhelmed in a church setting; or because nothing of significance is ever presented to them. Such situations can lead to, or more commonly lead from, an ingrained complacency in church life. This complacency arises when a Church neglects to exercise its primary vision and raison d’etre, and finds itself tied up in the thumb-twiddling and minutiae of the current cultural and social setting. Complecency is the result of conscious lies told about how much of ‘the real work’ is left to do; it’s a spiritual problem manifested politically. 

Culturally-dated purity standards

In some ways this one is more of a secondary issue, or ‘downstream’ of the other three. My point in saying that we follow culturally-dated standards is to say that we have adopted e.g. Victorian, Imperial, etc value systems as substitutes for really working out how to, for example, value and use money, speak about truth and identity, or create inspiring music, stories, literature, etc that challenges these assumptions. 

This is not to challenge purity, nor suggest it is useless, but to challenge our assumptions about how much our predecessors got right! 

Our creative output is boring and pedagogical rather than inspiring and attractive. We’re telling ourselves that the truth is monotone, a solution to our problems rather than the pursuit of our deepest most innate human desires, a means of ‘receiving someone else’s best thoughts’ rather than exploring life to the full. We’ve domesticated Christ and out him a book to study. 

And whilst he is there, we will practice justification by sanctification: the process of being saved by approximating to the moral standards of our most recent and applicable gurus. Hell. 

For example, I would not say The film ‘FREE GUY’ sets out to evangelise, but the concept of a truly free NPC incarnating in the code of a game and creating a bridge to the world of ‘Life Itself’ which only he could cross, this opening the way to a life free from harm and slavery is a familiar myth! That he has ‘superpowers’ and links between his world and the world of the Creator is powerful. And that his very identity constitutes ‘a love letter’ means that He is the Mission. 

Such profound mythos inhabits our AI driven tech world. 

Conclusion

As Jordan Peterson has said, (approximately) ‘You will always be touched by evil, but if you tell tell the truth then whatever happens will be the best the COULD HAVE happened…’ . 

I often fear that as evangelical Christians we have tacitly slipped into the habit of convenient lying and even as we speak of longing for heaven, we are busy creating Hell.