By Charles Gardner —
I have been reminded of the adage that truth is the first casualty of war. But as I pointed out in a recent article, the West has been seriously infected by a lying culture – even in peacetime – since we turned away from God’s laws.
And if we have allowed ourselves to imbibe the lashings of lies and propaganda pumped out by the mainstream media in times of relative peace, truth will be even harder to come by when war breaks out.
Quite a different matter, of course, if our worldview is taken from the Scriptures, which urge us not to be conformed to the pattern of this world but to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is…” (Romans 12:2).
Are our minds washed and informed by what we hear from the media? This is particularly apt in the wake of a BBC correspondent’s speculation that an IDF air strike had killed hundreds in a hospital when it was later revealed to have been the likely result of a misfired rocket from Gaza itself. (The BBC have since admitted it was a mistake).
This shocking miscalculation comes on top of the ongoing row over the BBC’s refusal to label Hamas thugs as terrorists.
The prophet Isaiah wrote of a time in Israel long ago when “truth had stumbled in the streets” (Isa 59:14) and there was no justice. We’re living in a similar age, but left-wing liberals should really try harder to grasp something of the culture of those they are endeavouring so hard to treat with impartiality.
Taqiyya is a well-known ploy in the Arab world to excuse the use of lies if it is deemed to serve the greater cause of Islam and Allah. It has long been used to justify deceptive political negotiations in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and was reportedly used by Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to explain the regime’s decision to accept the 2015 nuclear deal with the West.
The agreement, made in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, was designed to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program would be exclusively peaceful. Bear in mind that Iran is behind the current butchery of Israeli citizens. And, not surprisingly, Israel has long been highly sceptical of the intentions of a regime which has repeatedly (and publicly) threatened to wipe the Jewish state off the map.
There is no doubt about it; we have all been fed a constant volley of lies we are far too easily ready to accept as fact. As Daily Mail columnist Stephen Glover put it: “What a very odd state of affairs it is when our national broadcaster is more ready to take the word of a barbaric terrorist organisation than that of a democratically elected government.”¹
As Isaiah also said: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” (Isa 5:20) As the Mail said in its editorial: “With obscene haste [the BBC] uncritically parroted the Hamas version of events…a masterclass in how to spread jihadist misinformation.”
The editorial adds: “As a result, it risks fueling riots across the Middle East, inciting anti-Western attacks elsewhere in the world and stirring up hatred against the Jews.”
So we are back to the issue of truth, which the woke world loves to suggest is relative – that we all have our own version of it. And what a miry mess that has left us in, with ayatollahs demonstrating their ‘holiness’ by inciting murder and mayhem against the Jewish people, from whom we Gentiles, and the once civilized West, came to know their Messiah and Savior, our Wonderful Counsellor and Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ.
No, truth is absolute, and it can be found supremely in Jesus, who said: “I am the way and the truth and the life; no-one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
At the end of the day, what we are witnessing now in the Middle East and the global scene is a war between the Judeo-Christian world and the unholy alliance of Islam with the woke liberal West.
Having despaired of the loss of truth, Isaiah realised that God himself would come to their rescue. “The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins.” (Isa 59:20).
¹ Daily Mail, October 19, 2023
