Three Lies About Christianity, à la Bill Whittle

Yesterday JTR posted a wonderful stirring speech by Bill Whittle, in which the compelling and TRUE statements he made were rewarded with more than one standing ovation from the audience at this year’s Western Conservative Summit.

Among the most eye-opening points he made was that our culture, for the past 40 years, has been instilling three false ideas into our minds:

• Wealth is un-earned;
• Everyone is special;
• Let us (“liberal” government) help you.

He unpacks his ideas about cultural decay and how to fight it, in that speech–which you should really go and watch (it’s Sunday, you’ve got time, right?).  But as I listened to him yesterday afternoon, it occurred to me that a similar set of lies has paralyzed the Church and kept it from being effective:

Paul Ryan and Truth

“You can’t HANDLE the truth!”

Jack Nicholson didn’t really mean that.  What he meant was that the truth would make him look really bad, and probably cost him his job.  That’s often the case when obfuscation is claimed to be a concession to the other guy’s weakness.

But what about when a brave truth-teller, like Paul Ryan (see my brother’s recent posts), is lambasted for telling it like it is?   Saying that he lacks compassion for the poor, that cutting government-subsidy programs like Food Stamps is condemning a hefty share of our population to starvation, may or may not be true.