In a fallen world, only Jesus is 100% good. Everyone else is a fallen and selfish sinner. So that means we must decide what is true and false on things other than just who is saying it.
One quite good thing that has developed over the past two years is that so many folks have woken up to the fact that the mainstream media is not always reliable, and that our politicians are not always telling us the truth. Some of us had known this all along of course, but the way the media and most governments ran with the Covid issue made this even more clear.
But if one extreme was rightly to be avoided (fully trusting the state and the media about things like Covid), the other extreme is also to be avoided (trusting no one, questioning everything to the nth degree, and throwing away our critical faculties).
Sadly I see the latter now happening big time concerning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Just because the Rona alarmists tried to claim that everything we believe is just a big conspiracy theory does NOT mean there are no actual conspiracy theories out there, especially in regard to Ukraine. I have seen far too many folks pushing what is just plain foolishness in this area.
I have lost count of those telling me with a straight face that the West, NATO, the EU and Ukraine are all part of the deep state, the NWO, a Satanist cabal, and are all fully evil, while somehow a murderous thug and KGB officer is a great Christian warrior and our knight in shining armour, saving us all while he drains the swamp.
As if he is swamp-free. By the thinking of some of these folks, Trump of course is a full tilt Soros puppet and NWO deep state Nazi, since he also opposes Putin and his power grab in Ukraine. He even once told Putin to his face that if he goes after Ukraine he will bomb Moscow.
Being rightly sceptical of media spin and political lies is one thing. But throwing off all restraint, discernment and rationality and accusing everyone and everything of being a cabal of evil Jewish bankers, etc., is NOT the way to proceed.
Let me speak to a few more aspects of this. One big problem is how so many folks – including far too many rather irrational Christians – are just brainlessly seeing some folks as 100% evil and others as 100% good. Um, in a fallen world, only Jesus is 100% good. Everyone else is a fallen and selfish sinner. So that means we must decide what is true and false on things other than just who is saying it.
That is, if Biden says that 2+2=4 that does NOT mean it is false, just because a dodgy character like Biden has said it. If you think Zelenskyy is evil, and he says the sky is blue, that does not mean it is false. If you think Putin is evil, and he says George Washington was the first US president, that does not mean it is false. That is known as the genetic fallacy: doubting something purely based on who said it or its origin.
Back in my hippy days we said we should question everything and doubt all authority. But the biblical Christian does not fully run with that advice. Yes we have a healthy scepticism, we test everything, we seek for godly discernment, and we understand that sin in the world makes everything suspect and everyone biased. No one has total truth. No one is totally pure. But total truth is not found in just one person, just one party, or just one camp.
Let me give some examples here. Many folks have been running with everything RT (formerly Russia Today) has been saying about this conflict. It of course is a Russian state-controlled international television network. Because it and Russia have sometimes pushed some pro-family editorial lines and positions does NOT mean both are pure as the driven snow in every other area.
Just because Putin and Russia have been strong on things like on homosexuality (the same is true of Zelensky and Ukraine of course), does not make him the Messiah, nor does it mean that “Putin has more respect for the God of the Bible than any of our leaders” as I heard one guy actually claim!
The simple truth is, RT can have as many biases as the NYT does. Why do we assume that some media outlets are 100% trustworthy, and others are 100% untrustworthy? Why not have a healthy and balanced suspicion of them all? Thus if you are going to constantly run with a clearly biased RT as your source of gospel truth news, then why not also run with – or at least give a hearing to – the Ukrainian media for starters?
Thus if the panic merchants are telling us that Ukraine is a full tilt principality of Satan with evil biolabs, while Putin is Jesus incarnate coming to the rescue, then why not also read what they say about such things, including this piece?