True or False?

In the 2017 docudrama on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Come Before Winter, one of the principal characters, Sefton Delmer, a propagandist working to oust Hitler, says in the opening monologue, “Approximately 80% of our scripts were real news, the other 20%, carefully constructed lies.”  Delmer said this in the midst of World War II, during a time when newspapers and radios were the primary sources of information, yet even then, propogandists such as Delmer and others were seeking to manipulate the truth for their listeners, seeking to present the world as they wanted it to be for the Germans who were hearing their radio broadcast.  They simply provided more truth than lie to make their news believable, palatable.

Radios and newspapers seem antiquated to us -who now live in the age of information, or is it misinformation?  We have information at the tips of our fingers – more than we could ever use or comprehend in a lifetime. Propaganda is the norm now rather than the exception (though you might argue it was the same in WWII and even before).  Our sensitivity to the mistruths around us has become dulled.  It takes so much effort to determine who is telling the truth, oftentimes we don’t even want to bother.  We are jaded against news sources and social media alike, yet we often consume such information on a regular (and voluminous) basis.

How can we know the truth?  How can we be aware and awake (as Jesus instructs in Mark 13) when lies and misinformation constantly swirl around us?  We can rest assured and be confident in the truth because Jesus IS the truth.  In John 14:6, He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus is talking to his disciples at a time of great uncertainty for them. Just before His crucifixion, the disciples are confused and afraid; Jesus comforts them by saying, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  You believe in God, believe also in me.”  We, too, can take comfort in the fact that, like Thomas who decries, “We don’t even know where you are going? How can we know the way?” that Jesus IS the way, and he IS the truth.  He doesn’t point to the truth or point to the way.  He is the way, the truth, and the life.