The Danger of Lying

The Danger of Lying

by Roger Palms "It's okay to lie, as long as you're lying for Jesus."

I was in a seminary classroom, completing a J-term teaching assignment by helping students and pastors learn how to expand their ministries through writing. The subject turned to ethics. That's when a student spoke those words about lying; others in the class agreed with him.

This came at me like a blindsided hit on a quarterback. I was at a loss for a reply. This is a well-known conservative theological seminary, and those class members considered themselves to be evangelical, Bible-believing Christians.

So I had no choice but to explore their thinking. It went like this: "The secular press lies. Therefore we who are conservatives have to lie, too, if we are going to compete with the liberal media."

They are not alone. Friends who send me emails that I “must forward� to everyone I know tell me about what is going on in Washington that I have to warn others about before we lose our country. But too often the rumors in their emails are lies. A quick look online shows that the things I'm being warned about by these panicking friends who think they are saving the country are not true.

Recently an email came from a Christian friend about HR 4646. The warning was that "President Obama's finance team is recommending a 1% transaction fee. Obama's plan is to sneak it in after the November elections to keep it under the radar."

The writer tells us that this is a 1% tax on all transactions at any financial institution— banks, credit unions, savings and loans, etc. But the truth is totally different.

HR4646 was introduced by Rep. Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania on February 23, 2010. It had no cosponsors, was ignored by the House of Representatives and was swept up at the end of the year with all other proposed bills that went nowhere.

Still, those who wanted to give credence to this proposed bill added the names of Senator Tom Harkin and Rep. Peter DeFazio without permission and without any attempt to check with them. DeFazio said, "This is false. I do not support Rep. Fattah's HR 4646."

It has been said that a lie can travel halfway around the world before truth can get its

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shoes on. Chasing down false rumors and attempting to correct those who send the emails is frustrating. People who lie, or pass on what they want to believe is true, are convinced that they are doing a patriotic thing by their lying.

When Christians engage in this—and I am finding that there are many who do—they do much more than propagate political lies. They make it difficult to go to someone with the Good News of Jesus. When our lying is discovered by others, why should they have any interest in what we say about the Savior? If a Christian will tell one lie, he will just as easily tell another. What we speak of when pointing to the redeeming work of Christ is brushed off as another one of our false teachings.

As we move into another political season with upcoming elections, my email inbox will start filling up with passionate demands to block this candidate or that one who will destroy America if he or she is elected. In many cases the support for the statements made by these well-meaning Christian friends will be lies or, at best, half-truths.

But as those seminary students told me, "It's okay to lie, as long as you're lying for Jesus."

Roger Palms, former editor of Decision Magazine, is the author of 15 books and hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles.

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