The purpose of this topic is to address the outcry within the
Christian community over what is deemed to be Satanic. Hopefully
though this thread we can gain some insight into what is
responsible sharing and what is mere circulation of urban
legends.
At a personal level, it started with someone sending me a note on
the evil of Pokemon, this was followed by other Internet letters on
the Satanic nature of Harry Potter and eventually leading to
various articles being circulated about preachers being persecuted,
children having cancer and Singapore facing an impending doom by
earthquake.
On the surface, it would seem that this is a good thing to do
forwarding notes warning other Christians of the various pitfalls
in the world. It gets better because there are also very positive
notes about the various miracles of God ranging from the heroic
fireman at the US WTC building to condemned sinners being saved
through the grace of God.
But do these people who send these notes out bother to check the
authenticity or origin of the notes. If we are to think through
this carefully, we can conclude that any untruth we speak are lies,
then spreading an untruth is equally a lie. To go beyond this, the
moment we send out something unchecked, we are guilty of coercion
with other people to propagate this lie. Are we not admonished to
speak only the truth and let our yea be a yea and our nay be a
nay?
1. Is JK Rowling a white which and did she make derogatory remarks
about Christianity:
http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/potter.htm
http://www.truthminers.com/truth/harry_potter.htm
Both these websites contain credible evidence that the claims were
untrue.
2. Fireman Robert Matthews sacrifice at New York WTC
testimony
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/matthews.asp
3. Pokemon causes seizure to TV viewers
http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/seizure.htm
Note: www.snopes.com is an
excellent reference website for anyone interesting in debunking
internet legends. www.truthminers.com is a Christian
website.
The issues herein are
1. Not whether I, as an individual agree or not to
genres of entertainment like Harry Potter and Pokemon.
2. Not to attempt to change anyones mind with
regards to their personal opinions of such genres.
3. To discourage Christians from spreading lies
and half-truth indiscriminately.
In our zeal to uphold and spread the good news to the unbelievers
we must not attempt to achieve our goals through falsehood. Where
is the credibility when we make claims of miracles when they can be
proven to be false? Bear in mind that each time this is done, the
good name of Jesus is tarnished.
If anyone had followed the TV gameshow Who Wants To Be A
Millionaire?, you will remember that during an episode of the
childrens challenge, a young boy probably not more than 12 years
old was asked if he knew the answer to the full name of JRR
Tolkien. The child replied that he did not, the host then asked if
he had seen the movie LOTR, the child replied to the surprise of
the host: I did not see
LOTR, because like Harry Potter, it is
Satanic.
The thought that came to me was, how did he come to this
conclusion? Did he not know that JRR Tolkien was one of the
translators of the Jerusalem Bible? JRR translated the book of Job.
It is obvious that he did not concluded this himself but was
thought to hate evil by either his over-zealous Christian parents
or pastor.
This brings me back to my title: vigilance or crying wolf
. Please,
I encourage all responsible Christians NOT to indiscriminately
circulate unproven internet notes. Whether you like it or not,
speaking the truth is part of your testimony. Do it
right!