Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

FCC To Ban Religious e-mail!

WARNING!!! The FCC plans to ban religious e-mail! Godly people must act fast to head this off or we will lose our right to express our religious convictions over the Internet. We have only two weeks to respond to the proposed rule, so e-mail your opinion immediately to the FCC at responses@fcc.gov and send this e-mail to all of your friends!

I'm lying. I made it all up. I know, it's a dangerous thing to do. Sure enough, right now, there is someone somewhere in the world busily copy-n-pasting the first paragraph into an e-mail to ten thousand of their friends. Next week it will probably show up in a couple hundred church bulletins. And once it is printed there, it will never get stomped out.

Are you tired of all the emergency alerts you now get VIA e-mail? I am. Did you get the one about the Social Security Checks that had been mistakenly distributed, requiring a mark on the payee's right hand or forehead? (False.) Or, how about the call to flood CBS for deciding to show X-rated movies during prime time? (Also false.) How about the alert on the computer dubbed The Beast that is located in Belgium? The Beast is connected to a powerful laser beam and now is able to tattoo the forehead of every human on earth simultaneously VIA satellite. (Still false, after all these years.) The most amazing recent vigilant E-Mails tell me that Madalyn Murray O'Hair is proposing this or that to some government agency. If so, she's come back to life. Madalyn Murray O'Hair is dead.

So when I get wacky E-mail alerts, I usually just delete them, (unless I'm looking for entertainment). Why? For three reasons:

1. Truth.
Most aren't true. I want to value truth more than this. I wish people would check on their veracity before forwarding them. That would limit the spam-alerts. But most don't. Why? Could it be that they want them to be true. They're afraid they might turn out to be false. Sort of like some preacher's illustrations -- they are so effective that their truth is not relevant. Face it, some forms of Christianity (and some leaders) require a dangerous visible enemy. That's the only way to generate unity. The Russians are coming! The Communists! Madeline Murray O'Hair! The Democrats! The FCC! The IRS! Such leaders draw their power from the fear they are able to whip up by painting external threats. "Without an enemy we need no king!" It is how some leaders stay on their throne. Truth gets trampled under the feet of pragmatism. Truth becomes whatever is useful. And it is useful to have an enemy to unite the people. So (useful) falsehood gets presented as truth without checking. Who cares? As long as it keeps the troops fearful and under my command.

2. Sensationalism.
I dislike sensationalism. Most of the alerts I receive are simply "Christian Tabloid journalism." Baby eats 747 Jet! Woman gives birth to hippopotamus! Elvis is alive in Borneo! FCC to outlaw Christian TV! It's all the same. The trouble is, many who read the super market tabloids suspect they are invented stories. Christians pass such trash along pretending it to be truth. Shame on us. Jesus refused to leap off the temple pinnacle as a kick off to His ministry. He rejected sensationalism. We should too.

3. Wolf-Wolf.
Hey, one of these days one of these reports is going to be true. There really will be a clear and present danger to God's people. I'll probably get an E-mail about it. And, I'll probably delete it. (Hey, after this column I'll have to set my filters to automatically delete E-Mails with the number 666 in them!) In fact, most of the church will ignore the real/true message when it comes. Why? It will be the ten thousandth time we heard them cry Wolf! Wolf!

But what's a pastor to do when a member gives you one of these reports and ask you to put it in the bulletin? What do you do?

O.K. And, here's a related question: What if all the bad things these reports warn us about really happened? What if Churches were taxed, we lost our IRS Deduction for tithing, Christian TV was chased off the airwaves, attending church was outlawed, Bibles were banned, church buildings were confiscated, and Christians were required to say, "President Bill Clinton is God?"

Would these things ruin Christianity's true strain?

Or promote it?

So what do you think?

To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu