A Word for the Church: Deception, Discernment, and the Danger of Duplicity

 

"Some who walk this wide road represent themselves as sheep, but inside they are hungry wolves.  Watch out for these false prophets.  You will know them by their fruit.  Do grapes come from a thorn bush or pears from thistles?  Will a sick tree give good fruit or a healthy tree bad fruit?  No! Healthy trees give good fruit and sick trees give bad fruit.  It is the trees with bad fruit that are cut down and used to make a fire.  When you see the fruit of their ways, you will know them.  Not everyone who calls me their Great Chief is walking the good road from the spirit-world above.  The ones who do what my Father from the spirit-world above wants are the ones walking this road."  (Matthew-Gift from Creator Tells the Good Story: 7:15-21 FNV)

"Discernment is not decision-making.  Rather, discernment is allowing God to show us who we are to be in this world.  Maybe God doesn't care much about what you do, but cares a great deal about the kind of person you are. If we know who we are to be, we will also know how we are to act." --Cindy S. Lee in Our Unforming

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas (Jesus Changes Everything, 2023) states that “the most crucial task of the church is to be the church.”  He explains that to be the church is to be witnesses and ongoing storytellers of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Essentially, the church bears the weight of revealing the truth of Jesus through living out a Jesus-shaped ethic.  

This call to be witnesses of Jesus is so serious that Jesus warns us several times that there is a need for ongoing discernment regarding whether the church is indeed “churching” or being distracted and deceived. In the text in Mt 7:15, Jesus speaks of leaders who appear harmless but in reality, they are very dangerous. He calls them “false prophets”.  In the Judaic context, a prophet was a person chosen by God to reveal God’s purposes and align God’s people with them.  A false prophet is one who misrepresents God’s purposes through deception, distortion, or distraction.  

Jesus begins Mt chapter 7 by challenging his followers not to judge others. It’s not entirely clear what he means by judging, but we get clarity from the immediate context.  He follows that up with the word-picture of having a large wooden board in your eye but seeking to remove a small splinter from another’s eye.  Verse 5 says, “You deceive yourself! First, take the log out of your eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s or sister’s eye (CEB).  Just prior to this discourse, Jesus had explained that “The eye is the lamp of the body.  Therefore, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.” (MT 6:22 CEB).  Judging in this context is having an inaccurate perception of another, often accompanied by a lack of insight and self-awareness.  In fact, Jesus was alerting us to the dangers of self-deception.

Our capacity for self-deception is mind-boggling.  Self-deception is the act of choosing to embrace a distorted or patently false description of reality.  The ability to choose distinguishes self-deception from being deceived by others or being ignorant of the truth. You may ask yourself, "Why would anyone choose a false version of reality?".  The motivations for self-deception are myriad. One of the most powerful influences is our desire for harmony and moral resonance between our ideological values and our actions.  Interestingly, we often think that the ideological paradigms that we value will shape our activities and behavior.  However, one's valued activities have been shown to shift our ideological values to correspond to them rather than vice versa.  

Concrete examples of shifting ideological values based upon preferred activities include Evangelical Christian views on sexual immorality prior to the 2016 presidential election and afterwards.  Those who supported President Trump had a significantly more modified understanding of immorality (finding sexual immorality less objectionable), suggesting that their actions (voting to support President Trump) had a greater effect on their ideological values than their ideological values had on their actions.

This is how we become self-deceived.  We deeply value something we are doing or identify with, and we literally conform our ideological narratives accordingly.  I recognize that no one wants to admit that their perspectives are influenced by political preferences or an agenda that grants benefits at the expense of others (a definition of privilege).  However, it happens all the time. 

"Political participation has a unique ability to inspire idolatry in people precisely because it so often involves promises of protection and provision, requires sacrifices, legitimizes authority, and inspires submission and worship." --Kaitlyn Schiess in The Liturgy of Politics

Political activity can have a distinctly religious quality, requiring unquestioning loyalty and sacrifice.  Contemporary politicians often co-opt biblical language and imagery to frame the conflation of faith with specific political agendas.  This is why political rallies often appear like large church services. Christians often feel that their faith informs their political activities, but more often, it is the other way around: their political activities shape their faith.  Jesus, aware of his followers' capacity for idolatrous self-deception, encouraged them to exercise active discernment regarding which narratives were truly influencing their actions.  Elsewhere (Mk 8:15), Jesus strongly warns his disciples to be vigilant for the influence of those in power, as it has the ability to corrupt our faith in unique ways.  

Jesus was also aware that the way to protect against idolatrous deception is the practice of discernment.  Discernment is the ability to understand God's purposes and act accordingly. Discernment always clarifies our identity in light of God's gracious presence, power, and purposes.  Discernment is rarely about “them” but most about “us” and aligning our thoughts, attitudes, and activities according to God’s purposes.

Jesus understood that our leaders have a significant impact on our formation.  In light of this, Jesus asks that we discern who is influencing our formation. He is concise in his recommended approach to discernment.

1. Do not judge others (Mt 7:1): It is a waste of time to try to figure out who is and who is not truly a Christian. Here's the quiet part out loud: Someone can have a relationship with Jesus and be capable and complicit with evil and destructive movements. Knowing whether or not they have made a profession of faith, attend church, and engage in spiritual disciplines are all wonderful, but knowing all of that can exacerbate our deception by them. That is not something we should spend time on; instead, we should spend more time with self-awareness (getting the log out of one's own eye, Mt 7:5).  

2. You cannot tell what is true and good based upon appearance and perceived intent (Mt 7:15): Jesus warns us that evil will present as harmless and helpful. We have all known "deceived deceivers" who are unaware of their destructive impact and genuinely have no intent to wound.  Additionally, we all have biases towards those who look, sound, and believe like ourselves.

3. Discernment is based upon their impact (Mt 7:16-20):  Jesus specifically asks us to look at what was produced.  Fruit is the "produce" of the tree.  It is evidence of its activity and the impact on the world.  So often, we want to look at people and project what we feel was the intent of something horrific.  For instance, the Jan. 6th insurrectionists were described by the President as "patriots" as they were simply protesting "unfair elections".  This was an attempt to frame their intentions positively, yet the impact was the death of law enforcement officers and a legitimate threat to the stability of the nation.  In this example, the "stop the steal" political narrative was more influential among Christians who participated than the narrative of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection as a means of transformational peacemaking.

Jesus specifically discusses two different ways in which we are to discern fruit.  The first way was to notice if the type of fruit matches the type of tree.  So if the church is the metaphorical tree, its fruit should carry the seeds of the gospel of Jesus.  It should be consistent with his life and be built on the truth and grace that he embodied.  Secondly, Jesus speaks of healthy vs unhealthy trees.  In the CEB translation, Jesus speaks of "rotten fruit".  I like that translation because, in a biological sense, fruit is an attractive covering for a seed.  Fruit promotes new life.  On the other hand, when fruit is rotten, it is decaying and unsafe. When a leader has a dehumanizing and destructive impact through their words, actions, and influence, we should avoid their influence in our lives.  When that harmful leader is part of a local congregation, there are direct means to confront the "rotten fruit." However, when it comes from a social media influencer, successful Businessperson, or powerful politician, our duty is to confront publicly, speaking the truth in love. We dare not use "empire ways" to promote kingdom values.

Above that, we should stand for truth and the grace of Jesus by clearly making a distinction when popular ideologies co-opt Jesus.  The psalmist made it clear that we are to avoid standing with those who promote rotten fruit, regardless of their intention.

    Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, 

      or stand around with sinners or join in with mockers. 

    But they delight in the law of the LORD, meditating on it day and night. 

    3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. 

    Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do

Psalm 1:1–3 NLT

Jesus warns us against the danger of deception, particularly by people whom we like, admire, trust, agree with, find attractive, or have power, wealth, and charisma.  It is very easy to be deceived by duplicity, specifically when they have done things that appear to be very fruitful.  In my experience, this is why discernment needs to be a communal process.  There are people in your community who may have experienced the impact of a leader's rotten fruit that has never affected you.  Much like the discussion between the eagles in the caption at the beginning of this blog.  They could not understand the owl's predatory behavior because it was never directed at them.

This week, a nation mourned the death of Charlie Kirk.  His assassination was a sickening display of a violent culture.  I am praying for his family and, even more, continue to advocate for peace for a very sick nation.  All that being said, I am part of the church family and community that was the constant recipient of his vitriol. I had heard his speeches and his campus conversations dozens of times and read his writings hundreds of times and thus cannot be accused of "taking him out of context". He clearly advocated racist tropes of African Americans, particularly African American professionals, and was vehement in his negative approach toward Latin American immigrants. His language toward those who identify as LGBTQ+ was frequently derogatory. His use of scripture was often manipulated to promote political agendas, which, in combination with hateful rhetoric, hurt the witness of the church.  

For those who identify and strongly resonate with Charlie Kirk, I want you to imagine if a young African American specifically denigrated White people by questioning their intellect, motivation, and competence.  And he promoted a theology that centered on Black exceptionalism (Black people reflect the closest image of God and are given dominion over non-Black people). Furthermore, his influence led to further discrimination against White people, even the questioning of the accomplishments of White Americans in US history.  Even if there were times when he blessed his hearers with theologically sound messages, it cannot reverse the impact of his anti-White rhetoric. Please consider the impact of Charlie Kirk messages on the church's ethnic global majority.

My point is that I opposed Charlie Kirk while he was alive, and I refuse to lionize him in his death.  I mourn the tragedy and gladly create space for those who loved him to mourn him.  My prayer is for the church to pivot by committing to communal discernment, centering Jesus in all things.  Instead of being conduits for divisive anti-Jesus political agendas, we have the opportunity to participate in a unifying witness to the peacemaking, transformational love of Jesus.  Standing against hate, no matter who says it, and no matter to whom it is addressed, and embodying the love and unity of a diverse church that is the sign and symbol of the authentic kingdom of God.

My primary concern is actually about the church and its responsibility to be a credible witness to a watching world.  The responses to Charlie Kirk's death revealed the deception and the resultant disunity that stemmed from a lack of discernment.  I pray that we will practice better self-awareness and an unrelenting devotion to centering Jesus in all that we are and all that we have.  After all:

"The validity of Jesus' ministry is appraised on, and praised for, your loving unity." --Ann Voskamp in Loved to Life