Digestible Falsehoods from the Pulpit.

I originally titled this post “Factual Inaccuracies from the Pulpit” but it really did deserve the title it has now.

A short while ago I sat in a Canadian Reformed pew when my clan and I visited my parents over a weekend. There are certain things about these visits that I look forward to and others that bother me. I have absolutely no shame or fear walking back into a CR church, though it can be sort of surreal. It’s nice to get a refresh on where things stand.

Here’s what happened.

Almost right out of the gate, the minister grossly misrepresented the notions of a popular public intellectual. I just happened to be quite familiar with the points the intellectual made. What the minister stated were not them at all. Did he not understand? Did he take shortcuts in his research? Was it deliberate just to help make his point? A short time later, he went on to mention Nietzsche! I read a little Nietzsche in university, but I truthfully couldn’t tell you anything that guy philosophized about. Most likely, you can’t either.

And that is the point: I don’t know if the Rev was telling the truth.

I know he wasn’t honest about the first person in his sermon. In the rare instance where I go and attend a service, a falsehood about the world is put forward. And make no mistake, you rely on the minister to give you info about the world every Sunday. This, of course, made me think, what are the chances that my particular church visit and the random uttering of a falsehood coincide? Statistically very low.

You can take notes in a service, but what are the chances that you ever fact-check afterward? Again, statistically very low. And in this case, very difficult to do. And that’s why we trust. It’s much easier to trust what comes from the pulpit.

But are you getting an accurate picture of the world?