What is Truth in a web of possibilities?

I used to think that the best and highest purpose of the Internet was to quickly and efficiently send dumb jokes around the world. That was before the same stupid joke arrived in my inbox ten times a week. I still enjoy some email humor, but I’m no longer convinced it is the Internet’s best and highest purpose.

            What I have discovered instead, is what any email user encounters: the Internet seems to be the easiest and surest method to share false information as if it were real. These Internet hoaxes can cripple the Internet’s ability to serve as an outlet for useful information. After all, most folks fall for a few Internet hoaxes when they are new to the web and still think that Bill Gates will actually send them a check based on how many people forward their forwarded email on to friends.

            Then there are the more insidious hoaxes, like the email that warns you that you may have a virus on your computer. You are told to search for a particular file and then if you find it, delete it. The only problem is, the file to which you are directed is a file essential to the Windows program and the only virus harming your computer in this scenario is you.

Or there is the seemingly endless stream of emails I have received from Nigeria, Uganda, Nepal and more informing me that some widow is trying to give millions of dollars to our church or to me personally, if I will just get in touch with their lawyer. All of which, is a scam to get me to send a few thousand dollars to cover so-called up front costs.

            None of the above is new. In fact, it’s getting real old, real fast. A whole category of websites rose up to deal with the onslaught of half-truths and outright lies labeled as The Truth. Urban Legends websites like www.truthorfiction.com or www.snopes.com use a little detective work to determine the truth behind email hoaxes from heartwarming stories to political polemics.

Whenever I get an email forwarded to me that seems fishy, I try to check it out at these websites to find the truth. If I find a hoax, I send a link to the urban legends site out to try to break the chain. On the Internet, this is a fairly quick and easy process. I have to admit that I don’t always have the time and sometimes just hit delete instead. But I do try to do my part toward ending, rather than perpetuating a hoax.

As a Christian, I feel that I have a stake in The Truth. Christians claim to extol the Truth in a marketplace full of lesser truths. We then need to stand up against lies and half-truths. It would be nice to think that the Internet is the only place where lies get passed around so easily. But the Gossip was providing a pretty efficient means of character assassination long before computers were networked into a world wide web.

The Apostle Paul, in Romans 1:29 listed Gossip as a sin alongside murder. That might sound like hyperbole until you have seen that someone’s life can be torn apart by a baseless accusation. As one person who was front-page news when being investigated by Congress said after he was completely cleared of all charges, “Where can I go to get my reputation back?”

It’s a bad idea to pass along information from a friend of a friend of a friend in the real world as well as by email. We need to think through the rumors we hear before we pass them along. It is better to think the best of someone and if you need to know, do someone the decency of checking the information out in person before you pass it along. Just like you check to see if an Internet hoax is real, don’t talk about a friend, or even the friend of a friend without first getting at the truth as best you can.

Getting at the truth matters. It matters to the people we hurt if we spread a lie. It matters to the people we help if we spread the truth. And beyond that, the Bible compels us not simply to tell the truth, but to “do the truth” or “live the truth.”

This idea comes through very clearly in I John 3:19-20 where Jesus’ disciple, John, wrote, “Dear children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions. It is by our actions that we know we are living in the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before the Lord.”

With our actions, we show that we are living the truth. Those actions should stand up for what is true, while rejecting lies or even half-truths. Even when surrounded by a web of possible truths, it is worth searching for “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute” (Philippians 4:8). Those are the things we should seek out. Those are the things on which we should dwell.

(The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)

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