One of the activities Meg has included in our advent calendar was to watch a christmas movie. This weekend we were scrolling through potential options and ended up watching just the preview for "Miracle on 34th St."
I have not watched the movie, but from the preview I gathered the general synopsis. There is an old man who dresses up as Santa Clause each year (as many do across the country) for photo ops and to hear children's wish lists. Differing from most Santa's, this man truly does believe he is Santa Clause. It ends up going to court (again I haven't actually watched the movie) and his defendant makes a statement that was the climax of the preview:
"Would you rather have a truth that sheds a tear, or a lie that brings a smile."
Let that simmer. Let it further simmer that in context this was meant to be a rallying cry to viewers to empathize and agree with the defense. Let it simmer again, and watch the grease splatter from the pan, as you realize that many in our culture today not only would prefer the latter in this hypothetical situation, but are, in reality, living out this notion.
Meghan and I had a good laugh. This movie was definitely made in the 90s or so, and you can see that this ideology (subjective truth) has been playing the long game. They call it "my truth" now, and in the 90's they admitted it was a lie, and appealed to your emotions to get you to be okay with it.
First men could marry men because it would be rude of you not to allow it, you homophobic. Now Men can marry men because the definition of marriage has changed all together. The culture has believed the lie because it came with a smile, 'tolerance' they rejoiced. We would have been much better off to have the truth, and let a few cry.
Praise God we know which long game will win in the end, and already has.
Death has been defeated. The serpent and all his efforts, are in vain
amen. the trajectory is always to inspire sympathy for the lie and then to require empathy with the lie and finally to accept the lie as the new truth.
ReplyDeleteJames 1:15 tells us, “After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”