The Ways of the Heart
Frank Allnutt

Section 9: The Ways of Lies vs. The Ways of Truth

Page 1: Lies and Lying: An American Epidemic

A few decades ago lies and lying had become a widely unnoticed epidemic in
America. Then, as never before, the veracity of certain celebrities in sports, entertainment, government and politics came under question, and the piranhas of the news media turned each savory mess into a feeding frenzy.

On talk radio and television...in the supermarket rags...in internet chat rooms and forums...within the hallowed halls of justice...from behind pulpits and in schoolrooms...at local bars and pool halls—and other such institutions of bona fide debate and quasi-intellectualism—there was spawned no less than a national forum on lies and lying (concerning other people, of course; not oneself). The good it served was to raise the public consciousness about lies and lying. But has it raised the public’s conscience?

A century ago, Samuel Clemmons (Mark Twain) penned this ageless observation: “A lie is detestable to Almighty God...but a welcomed friend in time of need.” Now, as then, some people just couldn’t get through the day without their “welcomed friend.” Lying offers them both self-protection as well as a hopeful way to get ahead in life. Lying is the only way they know to avoid getting divorced, to keep their job, to close a deal, or to stay out of jail.

A British study in 2001 found that one in three people interviewed lied on employment applications. Are we to assume that the others did not lie in their interviews?
Another study, conducted by the psychology department at the University of Massachusetts in June, 2002, revealed these findings:

1. About the same percentage of men and women lied.
   
   
2. Men lie to impress others.
   
   
3. Women lie to make others feel better.
   
   
4. 60 percent of the 121 couples in the study group lied at least once within the first ten minutes.

The sad truth is that lies and lying are what really make the world go ’round—not that other “L” word.

For many years the used car salesman was America’s much maligned liar exemplar. Then came the heavy weights: celebrity politicians, movie stars, and pro athletes. The public outcry was enormous—some out of indignation, but most was of the “give us some more juicy tidbits” kind. (The lies of common folk rarely raise a ruckus.)

Lying just isn’t the scandal it used to be. Quite the contrary. A few months back I read a newspaper story about a management consulting firm that holds seminars on “The Art of Corporate Lying.” People used to climb the corporate ladder one rung at a time, now it’s one lie at a time. Does it work? Ask some former CEOs and CFOs (all inmates have regular visiting hours).

The sanitization of lies
Why have lies and lying become so fashionable? Quite simply because we live in a sinful world. And “all sin is a kind of lying,” St. Augustine observed. Another reason that lies and lying are fashionable, I think, is because we don’t use the words “lie,” “lying,” and “liar” as much as we used to. No sirree! In today’s more sophisticated and tolerant, Politically Correct society, we use kinder, gentler, sanitized words like fib, fabrication, smoke and mirrors, stonewalling, snow-job, slight distortion, twisting the truth, stretching the truth, misstatement, whitewash, sidestep, a story, a tall tale, pretending, kidding, fantasy, B.S., P.R., a line, colored facts, falsehood, invention, figment of imagination, an expediency, rationalization, approximation, spin, embellishment, generalization, over simplification, exaggeration, propaganda, political rhetoric...and the list surely goes on and on. Whatever you call it, a lie is a lie.

Our preoccupation with lies
Most of us do it unconsciously: We spend much time every day trying to sort out the truth from lies. We do it in response to what we hear from the mass media, politicians, advertisers, salesmen, and purveyors of all sorts of religious dogma on television. And many of us, some more so than others, spend a lot of time trying to figure out ways to skirt the truth in discussing sensitive subjects with spouses, bosses, bill collectors, and the IRS.

Our preoccupation with lies has been around for quite a while, having its genesis in a garden when a fateful conversation over knowing good and evil took place between a snake and two naked people. Not quite so long ago—in 1924—a philosopher wrote:

The whole world is absolutely brought up on lies. We are fed on nothing but lies. We begin with lies and half our lives we live with lies. Most human beings today waste some 25 to 30 years of their lives before they break through actual and conventional lies which surround them.
—Isadora Duncan

Lies in high places
I don’t know about you, but I was raised to respect, obey, and trust those in authority. The thought never crossed my mind that someone in authority might actually lie. But the truth, as we all know, is that even those in high places are not impervious to temptations to lie.

In the past century, two of the world’s most dreadful rulers were also two of the world’s biggest liars. Benito Mussolini said, “Our motto must be to lie in order to conquer.” But Il Duce’s (The Leader’s) lies were not nearly in the same league as his notorious role-model up north. Mussolini, along with fascist sympathizers and many other Germans, accepted Adolf Hitler’s lies as justifiable means to usher in his vision for a “Third Reich.” Some people naively assumed that Hitler always told them the truth. Others believed he was a godsend, and a few thought he was the Messiah—the savior not only of Germany but of the whole world. However, they were without excuse: Before Hitler came to power (during his imprisonment), he spelled out his philosophy about lying in his book, Mein Kampf:

The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell big ones.
—Adolf Hitler, Mein Kamp

I shudder to think of the potentially great devastation of Hitler’s lies and how far he might have plunged the world into deeper darkness had he today’s communications technology, especially television and the internet.

And then that lawless one [Antichrist] will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of the wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness (2 Thessalonians 2:8-121 ).

1. something good can result from lying;
   
   
2. lying is justified when it is the lesser of two evils;
   
   
3. lying is not wrong if no one gets hurt;
   
   
4. the end justifies the means.

Honesty and ethical standards in America
Every year The Gallup Organization conducts a survey on the honesty and ethical standards of various professions. The 2004 survey was made of 1,015 adults on November 19-21, and the results were made public on December 7.

Gallup presented each participant in the survey with a list of professions and asked them to rate the honesty and ethical standards of people in those different fields. Following is a ranking, in descending order, of those categories which received ratings of “very High” and “High”:

Rank/Category % Saying “High” or “Very High”

1. Nurses 79
   
   
2. Grade school teachers 73
   
   
3. Druggists, pharmacists 72
   
   
4. Military officers 72
   
   
5. Medical doctors 67
   
   
6. Policemen 60
   
   
7. Clergy 56
   
   
8. Judges 53
   
   
9. Day care providers 49
   
   
10. Bankers 36
    
    
11. Auto mechanics 26
    
    
12. Local officeholders 26
    
    
13. Nursing home operators 24
    
    
14. State officeholders 24
    
    
15. TV Reporters 23
    
    
16. Newspaper reporters 21
    
    
17. Business executives 20
    
    
18. Congressmen 20
    
    
19. Lawyers 18
    
    
20. Advertising practitioners 10
    
    
21. Car salesmen 9
    __________________
    ©2004 The Gallup Organization

While the Gallup survey is designed to indicate participants’s perception of the level of honesty and ethical practice of people in the listed professions, the differences between the ratings and 100% reveal their perceptions of dishonesty and unethical practices. Quite obviously, the survey participants believed they are overall getting heavy doses of lies along with truth from people in the listed categories.

The mother of all lies
All lies are born of the mother of all lies. What Mussolini, Hitler, and millions of others today, including some Christians, have in common is that, because of pride, they are deceived by the same lie Satan told Adam and Eve: that man, through his own resourcefulness, is quite capable of managing his life.

Life’s messages
The mother of all lies comes to us through usually subtle and indirect messages. We can see the effects in those who profess to captain their own ship or rule over the kingdom of self.

The information we receive throughout life is stored in the memory of the soul. It forms a matrix of mixed messages from which we form our concepts of truth and lies, good and evil, right and wrong, reality and fantasies. In effect, they become the basis of our beliefs and values. The person who functions out of false beliefs and values develops distorted concepts of moral imperatives, self, others, God, the temporal world, and the spiritual realms.

Misleading messages also impact the emotion, will, and conscience, and can cause them to become unstable and damaged. They routinely steer the gullible person to attempt to fulfill their needs and desires in faulty ways that are outside of God’s will.

In our early developmental years the source of misleading messages can come from some of the most unsuspecting sources, even well-intentioned but errant parents, siblings, teachers, and peers (Figure 9-1).

Figure 9-1: With young children, the source of misleading messages can come from some of the most unsuspecting sources, even well-intentioned but errant parents, peers, teachers, and peers. As we grow older and our social circle expands, so do the potential sources for more lies, deceptions, and fantasies.

As we grow older and our social circle expands, so do the potential sources for more lies, deceptions, and fantasies. False messages about God, others, self, and the Christian life can hold a Christian in conditional and functional darkness and captivity. They can render the individual partially blind and deaf to what otherwise would be empowering messages from God of truth, love, faith, and hope. False messages can lead to sin, which divides the heart or inner person—functionally separates the soul from the spirit, and therefore from the indwelling Holy Spirit—and leaves the believer dysfunctional in terms of spiritual discernment and Spirit-empowerment and guidance.

A person’s mixed bag of memorized lies, deceptions and truth, wrongs and rights, fantasies and realities, set before them a confusing array of moral, philosophical and religious concepts. Through this clouding of the eye of a person’s mind, they see things in fleshly and worldly distortion (Figure 9-2).

Now let’s consider a few examples of how some people are typically exposed to damaging worldly lies, deceptions and fantasies.

Intellectually. Children are educated in humanistic philosophies in the world’s secular schools, and people of all ages are influenced by worldly entertainment and mass media, including publishing, broadcasting and the internet.

Economically. People are duped by their own lust and ignorance into buying into worldly financial systems, methods and philosophies that promote materialism, debt, gambling, and speculative high-risk investment schemes. The accumulation of wealth, in the worldly mind, translates into happiness, security, and controlling power, all of which are deemed essential to development of a favorable self-identity, high self-esteem, and proud self-sufficiency.

Politically. Lies and deceptions come from many sources, including governmental, cultural, ethnic institutions and special interest groups.

Spiritually. False teachers and false religions and philosophies wrongly influence people’s concepts and beliefs about almost everything and anything—about themselves, others, and especially about God.

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