Today’s Scripture Reading (April 2, 2018): Hebrews 3
A Facebook meme was recently
released by gun rights advocates. The Meme read: “Stockton, California
students were arrested during walkouts for gun violence protests on charges of
battery on an officer, vandalizing vehicles and taking an officers baton. Carry
on kiddos. You’re just proving our point that it’s not a gun problem. It’s a
moral problem. Thanks for helping!” The meme leads the reader to believe that
this took place during the organized student walkout in March 2018. It also
conveniently omits any mention of the number of students involved in the
misbehavior. Most of us understand that in any protest movement there will be a
small number of troublemakers who are just
there to cause trouble (they might call it having fun) and who really do not believe in the movement itself.
We don’t have to like it, but it happens. And the activity of these troublemakers should not tarnish the
reputations of those who are the true believers. Every movement will always have
both.
The real story behind the Stockton arrests is
slightly different than the one told by the Facebook meme, although maybe not
significantly different enough to call the creator of the meme a liar. The meme
simply shapes the truth. The real story is that the Stockton protest took place
in February 2018, not during the organized March 2018 protest. The students did
participate in the March 2018 protest, and
there were no problems reported. Of the three hundred students involved in the
protest in February, five were arrested
for their misbehavior; less than two percent of the total involvement. The student
leaders of that protest apologized to police for the mischief caused by the
five rebels. Maybe, to some, none of that matters. But it does to me. The
integrity of the student leaders in Stockton showed through both the apology to
police and the fact that there were no incidents reported during the March 2018
protest. I am slightly angry that some unknown entity would choose to use the
February incident for their own personal
advantage, ignoring the fact that the problem
was correctly handled by the leaders of the protest. The meme told a
partial truth, which in itself is really a
lie.
We live in an era where we have ceased to believe
in ultimate truth. All that is left is a partial truth, or a lie, that fulfills my agenda. So, if I am the President
of the United States, it is perfectly fine to tell a visiting world leader that
there is a trade deficit between the United States and that country even if
that is untrue. Because we can have confidence that the truth can be shaped to
make it anything that we want it to be; we can shape the truth so that it
fulfills our purposes.
The author of Hebrews writes that we have a heavenly
calling and that we should fix our eyes
on Jesus. And part of what that means is that we accept that there is an
ultimate truth. Our problem is that ultimate truth requires a moral frame of
reference. If there is no heaven, then there can be no moral frame of
reference, and what is right is what is ok in our eyes or justified by the
ends. But if God exists, and if there is
an ultimate right and wrong, then the ends can never justify the means. Half-truths,
or truths built on only part of the story, are always wrong.
In the current debate over guns, we should be
proud of the teens who are standing up for what they believe, no matter which
side of the gun rights battle we might be on. And we should be ashamed of those
who try to tell half-truths to justify their own
views. And if we really have a heavenly
calling and have fixed our eyes on Jesus, then it is the whole truth that we
need to tell – and not just the convenient truth.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hebrews 4
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