False Flags and Damnable Lies

The mob believes everything it is told, provided only that it be repeated over and over. Provided too that its passions, hatreds, fears are catered to. Nor need one try to stay within the limits of plausibility: on the contrary, the grosser, the bigger, the cruder the lie, the more readily is it believed and followed.             ― Alexandre Koyré, 

You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 
―John 8:44

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
― Adolf Hitler

Surely, I can’t be the only one who saw the parallels.  On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building which housed the German parliament was set on fire.  The fire was set by the Nazis, though they scapegoated a Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe.  As a result of the fire civil liberties, including
freedom of the press and freedom of expression, were suspended.  The fire ultimately gave the Nazis the ability to pass the enabling act, which allowed the Chancellor (Hitler) to pass decrees without the involvement of parliament.  Democracy in Germany was dead.

Flash forward to January 6, 2021.  On the Feast of Epiphany, a celebration of light and inclusion, the US Capitol was attacked and ransacked in what has turned out to be one of the darkest days in our nation’s history. Scores of racist MAGA-terrorists stormed the Capitol building in an effort to overthrow the results of the presidential election.  It really shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone:  much like the Germans, these anarchists have been fed a continuous diet of lies for years.  Words have consequences and so do lies.  The consequences of these particular lies were the deaths of five people. 

The MAGA-terrorists didn’t come empty-handed when they stormed the Capitol.  Like the Nazis, they know the value of a good flag.  Graphic designerLaura Scofield writes that “flags are the most powerful artifacts ever designed because they’re visible symbols of our identity.”  The insurrectionists’ identity was on full display as they carried Confederate flags and neo-Nazi flags. Some of them even had the audacity to wave the United States flag.  I found this particularly hard to take since these MAGA-terrorists, to put it bluntly, were committing treason. If I sound angry, it is because I am.  Extremely.

If, as scripture tells us, Satan is the father of lies, then Donald Trump is the weird uncle.  You know the type; he’s the creepy family member with the grabby hands that no one wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving dinner; the one with few friends because he constantly complains about the ‘coloreds.’  Trump lies as easily as he breathes:  even as he asked the insurrectionists to go home, he still pushed the lie that the election was stolen.

And the lies just keep coming.  Matt Gaetz took to the floor of congress to claim that the whole attack on the Capitol was a false flag operation led by the Democrats and Antifa.  Shades of how the Nazis scapegoated poor old Marinus van der Lubbe.  He was executed, by the way.  Again, lies have consequences.

Like many people, I saw the attack play out in real time on television, my anger and blood pressure redlining. I don’t like being angry because it makes me feel ill both emotionally and physically.  I also don’t like to offend other people, which has led me to remain quiet in the face of abuse after abuse, lie after lie.  That makes me partially culpable for what has happened to our country.

Was it a lack of nerve that kept me from speaking out?  Partially.  But, in truth, it was a lack of love.  That’s right, love.

When someone is engaged in destructive behavior, the loving thing to do is confront them about it.  When someone is the victim and/or spreader of harmful lies, the loving thing to do is confront them about it. We need to speak the truth in love.

Loving someone doesn’t mean you like what they do; it doesn’t even mean that you like them.  To love someone means that you want the best for them, you want them to enjoy the health and wholeness that comes from God.

While I hate what the terrorists did, I can’t hate them; while I hate the lies that are being told by a number of political enablers, I can’t hate them.  I can’t, not when I consider my own sinfulness and the grace God has extended to me.

Not that loving others is always an easy thing to do.  To extend the love, grace and forgiveness God calls for is beyond my ability.  What am I to do?  What I always do:  Bring it to God.  I have to lay my anger at the foot of the cross, on which Jesus spread his arms to welcome sinners of all kinds; even hypocritical sinners like me.

Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  His death and resurrection showed that reconciliation and truth can triumph over hatred, lies and division.  Love is the only thing that can break the cycle of violence and division.  Love will win out because God’s very essence is love.

We barely made it through 2020 and we heaved a collective sigh of relief when the calendar turned to a new year.  Unfortunately, things have gotten worse, not better.  Covid-19 deaths are out of control. Our nation is deeply divided.  There is a report that another MAGA-terrorist attack is planned for January 17^th. 

2021 can be better if we want it to be.  A Covid-19 vaccine is in the beginning stages of distribution, giving hope that the end of the pandemic is in sight.  The violence can stop right now if we, as people of faith, work for peace.  The hatred can stop if we see one another as beloved children of God.  But first, the lies need to stop.

If this post has offended you, I’m sorry.  I try to avoid writing about politics, but too often politics and faith collide and this is one of those times.  Among the flags the MAGA-terrorists carried into the Capitol building were the Christian flag and another that read “Jesus is my Lord, Trump is my president.”  There was no way I could let that pass.  I doubt God sanctions their behavior.  It is Satan who divides; it is God who unites.  On the night of his arrest Jesus prayed that we might be one.  We find an echo of this in the motto of the United States:  E Pluribus Unum:  Out of many, one.

Perhaps it’s time to put the flags down and pick up the cross. 

May the peace of God guard our hearts and minds.