FEATURE
FAKE NEWS, FAKE GOSPELS! Knowing the true story in an age of misinformation —by Sara Kyoungah White
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few years ago, Jacob Cherian, dean of faculty at the A disturbing analysis of 4.5 million tweets shows that falsehoods Centre of Global Leadership Development in Bangalore, are 70 percent more likely to get shared. This shows it’s not only India, received a cash gift of several thousand rupees. He an inability to decipher what is true that makes fake news so gave three of those notes to a friend to use at a hospital, only to prolific—we also find it alluring, sensational. discover that the notes were fake. ‘I decided then to learn the key characteristics of a real Christians are not immune thousand rupee note,’ says Cherian. Soon he knew how to judge Despite being the bearers of good news, Christians are not a real note from a counterfeit one, despite how much they immune to fake news. Our propensity for fake news reflects our resembled each other. Cherian sees this as propensity for fake forms of the gospel. A an analogy for being able to distinguish 2020 survey by Ligonier Ministries showed fake news from real news, and the true that a significant number of evangelicals Our propensity for fake Gospel story from the many fake gospels have a profound misunderstanding about news reflects our propensity rampant today. God. “Overall, adults appear to have a for fake forms of the Gospel. superficial attachment to well-known Christian beliefs,” stated the ministry. “For The sloganised gospel example, a majority agreed that Jesus The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘fake news’ as “news that conveys or incorporates false, fabricated, or de- died on the Cross for sin and that He rose from the dead. However, liberately misleading information, or that is characterised as or they rejected the Bible’s teaching on (1) the gravity of man’s sin, accused of doing so”. Fake news is widespread and powerful in a (2) the importance of the church’s gathering together for worship, global culture where people and (3) the Holy Spirit.” have 24/7 access to television, radio, news websites, How do you distinguish the truth? podcasts, messaging apps, How then does one distinguish what is fake from what is true, Facebook, and Twitter, all especially when it comes to Christianity—like Cherian’s rupee channels through which notes? And how can we return to the true Gospel in a world fake news proliferates. saturated with false gospels? These were the key questions posed in October 2021, when over 120 participants from around the world joined virtually for ‘The Good News in a World of Fake News: Knowing the Story’. The panel included Jacob Cherian as well as Ligon Duncan (chancellor and CEO
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