True Lies

If you become a Christian then your life will be blessed. Your crops will never die, the insects can’t disturb them. You know you are being good when you are rich. Be aware of Evil Spirits, they are more powerful than you think. God is powerful, but so are the witch doctors, evil spirits, and curses. If someone places a curse on you then you will suffer. Real Christians pray loudly and for many hours. Real Christians attend fellowship at least four times a week. When you become a Christian then life becomes easy; you never hunger, you never have to work hard, you never have to be sick. If you are sick it is because you are not being good. You lose your salvation when you aren’t good. God punishes you when you aren’t good. Being good is required; but it isn’t really clear how to be good. Trial and error is the only way to figure out what God wants. If your life is not being blessed, then you are doing something wrong, try again. In the bible it says that men are better than women; consequently men have authority over women and women must obey and respect men or they can lose their salvation and God won’t bless them. In the bible it says that you must cane children or they won’t behave. In the bible it says that all you have to do is tell God what you want, and He must give it to you. If He doesn’t give it to you, ask again, and louder. Prayers are more effective when shouted, repeated, and accompanied by yelling at satan, evil spirits, and chanting. In the bible it tells how women brought suffering into the world when eve, the weak one, ate the apple; consequently all disease and suffering comes from women. Additionally, women (and girls) should be punished more severely as they are weaker and more prone to making mistakes. If a girl becomes pregnant it is because she did something wrong, girls get pregnant all on their own.

True lies.

Someone once said that the best lie is 99% truth and 1% not. Truth is something I have struggled with during my time here. Is truth determined by majority vote? NO. But as my dad reminded me, Justice is determined by majority vote. Because people are fallen creatures “justice” is often a reflection of an individual’s personal desires, will, and feelings rather than a reflection of truth. It is hard to swallow most days.

True lies are particularly destructive because of the intended audience and the implementation or medium through which they are spread. What are true lies? A student introduced that phrase to me; I am sure he did not know the impact it would have on my inner dialogue as I have since struggled with the idea. True lies can be one of two things: part a- a lie told blatantly in jest, or part b- a truth twisted to serve a selfish purpose, and thereby convoluted and tainted, changed from truth to a non truth.

Part A: any time a kid asks me how old I am I tell them without hesitation that I am 85 years old. This is an example of a true lie – something told blatantly in jest, easy to identify as not truth. (with one caveat: white people are mystical creatures here… for the more skeptical ones and the ones who know more than three “bazungu” it is obvious that we do age… for the unknowing, it is quite possible that I may in fact be 85 years old, being a mystical creature and all)

Part B: If you become a Christian then your life will be blessed. A twisted truth, and thereby no longer true. If you become a Christian yes, your life is blessed- but not in the traditional “I am wealthy, never sick, and am now a super awesome person” sense. If you become a Christian, a follower of Christ, you are called to a life of self sacrifice (deny yourself, take up your cross), a life of obedience (follow Me), a life that is counter cultural (forgive, turn the other cheek, seek first the kingdom). How does that fit in the world we know? Do the math: Self Sacrifice + Obedience + Counter Culturalism = a life transformed. The transformed life is the blessing.

Change is painful. I am a living testament to that fact. I don’t even like change… and yet… I am blessed.