But thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same earnest care I have for you. For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest he is going to you of his own accord. With him we are sending the brother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel. And not only that, but he has been appointed by the churches to travel with us as we carry out this act of grace that is being ministered by us, for the glory of the Lord himself and to show our good will. We take this course so that no one should blame us about this generous gift that is being administered by us, for we aim at what is honorable not only in the Lord's sight but also in the sight of man. - 2Corinthians 8:16-21 (ESV)
The key verses today are tucked away at the end of the eighth chapter of the second letter to the Corinthian Church and it specifically is a commendation of Titus. Within these few verses we can see a great many lessons about how we are to behave as Christians that is sorely lacking today due to the rampant political idolatry gripping the church. First of all, what was Titus famous for? Was he famous for railing against the Roman Empire and his poignant political commentary? No. Was he famous for railing against sinners and condemning the lost? No. He was famous for preaching the gospel. What are we famous for beloved? What do we see Christians today being famous for? Is it for reposting twisted lies about marginalized people eating pets? Is it for retweeting horrible disinformation about Olympic Ceremonies, female boxers, or how people who are in this country legally are somehow illegal? What we are known for will be our testimony. Why would anyone believe us about Jesus when we lie so easily about politics? Doesn't that matter to us? Shouldn't we want to be known for the gospel?
The act of grace of preaching the gospel and representing Christ serves two functions only. One is to bring glory to God and the second is to show the lost our good will. Is that what comes to mind when you see posts from your Christian friends or read Christian articles today? Are they bringing glory to the Lord by wildly speculating about things we clearly do not know nor understand, about people we will never meet? Political expediency and Machiavellian logic are not Christian virtues and bring no glory to God. None. When we read the tweets of our churched brethren, do we get the sense that they are done with a whiff of good will? Is it good will to side with one random lunatic being paid to go on Fox News while ignoring all the officials and police of the city we are so easily disparaging? Is it good will even towards our own Christian brothers and sisters? Is it showing good will to destroy the lives of our Haitian brethren after they already suffered through the horrors of the 2010 earthquake? To act like they are illegal and eating pets? To the point where 33 bomb threats have now been made this week in Springfield Ohio? After the Republican Governor, the Republican Mayor, all the police and local officials and the residents have all said stop lying about this? After the originator of this lie now admits the story never had any proof and she regrets posting it? That the only ones left pushing this are the church and soulless politicians? Is it showing our good will to call people who vote Democratic hell-bound and unredeemable, as Charisma News, through Greg Locke and Mario Murillo, have done? Or how Jack Hibbs implied it by the insane belief that Jesus will be holding our voting record in His hands when we stand before Him. Do we really think that we stand blameless here? Or are we driving away from Christ the very people who need Him the most. For what? Thirty pieces of political silver based upon promises that are rarely kept or never amount to what we think will happen.
Perhaps the most telling verse here is the last one. Our aim should always be to do what is honorable not only in the sight of the Lord but in the sight of man. I know this flies in the face of NAR dominionist theology, but it is what God has commanded here. It matters if we appear honorable to the lost beloved. It matters if all they see from the church is hate. It matters if we have so little honor that we become conduits for specious fear mongering, conspiracy theories and flat out lies. There is no honor in lying about people. There is no honor in disinformation. We will not be able to hide behind the "I was only reposting" nonsense or "but look at what this random person on YouTube says." Dear Lord, we are supposed to be discerning people, not reflexively sharing what confirms the bias we already have.
I say these things today because I saw a brother post a link on Facebook yesterday with the absurd title that up to 2.7 million illegal immigrants might vote in the upcoming election. I say absurd because it is not only factually bankrupt, but it is completely moronic. The source was something called "Washington Stand'" which is the political arm of the Family Research Council, which is entirely carnal and political to begin with. The FRC job is to prop up the Republican Party by whatever means necessary, honor be damned. From the link is this devious explanation:
"A 2014 academic journal found that 6.4% of noncitizens voted in 2008," Kerri Toloczko, executive director of Election Integrity Network and senior advisor to the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, told The Washington Stand. "There are about 24 million noncitizens in the U.S. right now. If they voted only at the same rate of 6.4% this year as they did in 2008, they would account for 1.5 million votes." - Family Research Council
This is the anatomy of a lie and how it is perpetrated as fact over long periods of time. A recent witness before Congress, who had clear partisan bias to drub up this fear of the "other" and perpetuating the myth of non-citizens voting referred to an article from 2020 by someone named James Agresti. Mr. Agresti works for a think tank that is known for its inherent bias and he was citing the referenced 2014 study by someone named Jesse Richman, who tried to analyze data from something called the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES). The CCES is an online survey of CITIZENS, after elections. For some reason, it has a selection question of citizen and non-citizen and apparently, some incorrectly selected non-citizen, which Richman took at face value. The real problem is that those numbers were so small, they could not reliably be used statistically but Richman did anyway, and the Trump folks ran with it as proof of their wildly ridiculous assertions about non-citizens voting. So much so, That Richman is on record as saying that they are misrepresenting his work, no matter how flawed everyone else knows it to be anyway. Harvard University summed the problems with using this study as follows:
