It’s so hard to see a delusion for what it is when you’re immersed in it. When everything you see and hear and feel confirm the powerful propaganda. But lies are obvious to anyone on the outside.
And it’s so easy to just go along — to float on the raging river of lies. We don’t want to believe that we are being tricked, manipulated, or deceived on a grand scale.
But if we aren’t intentional with our lives, those would would deceive us are more than happy to be intentional for us — for their profit, but at our expense.
2020 Hindsight?
What will people say in 20, 50, or 100 years about the 2020’s? Will they see us like Germans in the 1930’s? How could they have believed Hitler’s lies? Or like American slaveholders in the 1800’s? We would never have participated in that kind of evil.
I’m pretty sure that in 20, 50, or 100 years, people are going to be asking questions about us:
- How could they let the most powerful monopolies in the world sell them intentionally addictive technology?
- How could they have given these devices to their teens? Their kids? Their babies? When they already saw the negative effects on their own mental health, their passions, their motivations, even their faith?
- How could they have become so confused that they actually thought men could become women and women could become men?
How Do We Know If We’re Deceived?
Propaganda is a dense fog. It’s almost impossible to see the delusion. Everything you see and hear and feel confirm the false narrative. But lies are obvious to anyone outside the clouds who can see blue sky.
That’s why Christians over the centuries have fought for the Bible. Wycliffe Bible Translators says that disciples in restricted nations who face prison, torture and death for their loyalty to Christ aren’t asking for protection or rescue or comfort. They’re asking for the unexpected: more Bibles.
Because they know what we forget. You can only identify lies if you know the truth. And where better to find truth than the Truth, who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
Those who read the Bible know that it predicted today’s global deception. Paul told Timothy, “but the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). He also said that in the last days “evil people and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).
Paul may have wondered how that would be possible, especially on a global scale.
But we know how it’s possible. Billions of devices in every pocket, purse, backpack, back seat, and cradle. We’re immersed in lie-filled screens.
Proud Of Our Lies
Some of today’s most destructive lies are propagated with “pride.” If they tell us, show us, or sing to us millions of times, we can even come to (proudly) believe that men can become women, and women can become men. That you can change (or even choose) your pronouns.
This propaganda targets our kids with Kellogg’s cereal and cartoons like Blues Clues (complete with encouragement to maim themselves).
We wouldn’t have even accepted this 10 years ago. Nobody would have accepted these lies if they were not manipulated by spending the vast majority of their time consuming lie-filled messages on their screens. But we’ve changed because propaganda works.
We’re watching as our most powerful leaders and corporations encourage the mutilation of our future.
And the forces behind these lies are so powerful that it’s risky for me to expose them. Books with these views are pulled from Amazon, social media access is revoked, and cancel-culture rages against anyone who affirms posts like mine.
What Is Unloving?
We have been programmed to think it is unloving to challenge this lie. But is it really unloving?
No. It is unloving to let people live in a lie, when you know the truth and can help them.
If you have a 6′ tall, 110lb friend who thinks she’s overweight, you’re not loving her by agreeing. You love by telling her the truth, with grace and compassion, then by helping her find the mental help she needs.
I have written with the love, care, and concern of a husband, a dad, and a grandpa. I don’t want to stand by silently and watch while our precious youth are deceived, overwhelmed with lies, and manipulated into sterilizing and mutilating themselves.
Germans of the 1930’s silently accepted lies as trainloads of their Jewish neighbors were transported to concentration camps. (China is doing the same thing to the Uighur Muslims right now.)
Americans in the 2020’s are standing by while our youth are so broken down by propaganda on their screens that growing percentages of them are “identifying” as a different (or fluid) gender. They are “affirmed” in their painful deception with destructive hormones and unthinkable surgeries, instead of receiving the mental health care they’re crying out for.
Someone needs to challenge these lies and speak truth in love. In fact, a lot of people need to speak truth in love.
So please, dear reader, become counter-cultural in at least these three ways:
- Read or listen to [Un]Intentional, and learn not only how our screens are manipulating us, but also find the Biblical way to freedom.
- Families, get ScreenStrong, and learn how to coach your kids away from problematic screen use.
- Most of all, spend more time with the Truth than the lies, and grow in the grace and knowledge of the One who loves you more than anyone else.