On the Common 127

Grace and truth.

Hello friends,

I recently spent some time in my home state of Massachusetts but I managed to bring the heat and humidity with me as I traveled. Last week my son was up there and he got the “high of 72 degrees” day I’d been chasing.

Boston still looked lovely, though:

Boston’s Public Garden: what a great idea.

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The Part Where There’s an Essay: What it Means When We Say We Don’t Know

[Note: this was originally posted in October 2022, but maybe you’ve seen some internet rumors over the last month? Conspiracies even? Be careful out there!]

When I was in middle school, I became aware of a popular urban legend. The singer Phil Collins had a popular song at the time called “In the Air Tonight,¹” and a rumor had taken off about the song. In the story, Collins composed the song while staying in a beachside hotel room. He looked out at the beach and witnessed a man drowning -- and a bystander watching. The bystander made no move to go get help, but quietly stood by and watched a man die.

There were also darker versions of the story; one had the bystander actually actively drowning the man. One even featured the drowning man as a guy who had an affair with Phil Collins’ wife. The stories sprung from the verse of Collins’ song:

If you told me you were drowning

I would not lend a hand

I’ve seen your face before, my friend

But I don’t know if you know who I am

Well, I was there and I saw what you did

I saw it with my own two eyes

So you can wipe off that grin

I know where you’ve been

It’s all been a pack of lies

Here’s where the story became an epic legend: not only did Collins pen the song about the incident on the beach, but he then worked it into his setlist for that night. He made sure that the neglectful bystander got a front-row ticket to the show. And then when the time came for the song, Collins shone a spotlight on the man as he sang the song to him.

What a moment that must have been. Except none of it was true.

This phenomenon was common in the 80s and 90s: a story would get legs sometimes, and take on a life of its own. We all looked suspiciously at white vans because we heard that a kidnapping ring used white vans with no windows. We wondered if “Stairway to Heaven” was actually a satanic song if you played it backward.

This susceptibility to rumor and story is part of human nature. Now in 2022 it takes the form of Nyquil Chicken (not actually a thing) and Slap a Teacher (also something that took off only after it was reported as a problem). You can find myriad examples every day because the speed at which information travels now is so much faster. Back in the 80s we heard something, shrugged our shoulders, maybe told a friend or two, and went on with our lives. Now everyone has the power to reshare -- and falsehood gets a running start.

This story reminds me of two truths about knowing things in the internet age:

The Internet Makes Things Easy to Know

Maybe you’re wondering how I know that the Phil Collins story above isn’t true. Here’s how: Rolling Stone did an interview with the man himself back in 2016 (My Life in Fifteen Songs). He said about “In the Air Tonight,” which he wrote when his divorce was happening, “I’m not quite sure what the song is about, but there’s a lot of anger, a lot of despair and a lot of frustration....Nobody knows what the song is about, and I kind of like the mystery.”

Phil Collins could be lying in that interview, I guess. But I’m OK with believing a man in the twilight of his career, talking to a well-established media outlet, reporting on facts from his own life.

So the internet made that easy to know -- the song isn’t actually about a witnessed murder/drowning. If only seventh-grade Kelly had had access to Rolling Stone’s website when she first heard the rumor in the youth group van on the way to the frozen yogurt shop.

The Internet Makes Things Hard to Know

But here’s the flipside: the internet makes things really difficult to know. The general democratic nature of it -- the fact that anyone can get a website and declare themselves an expert -- should raise a healthy level of suspicion on our part.

The most grievous recent example of this phenomenon is the rise and success of QAnon in the 2020 election cycle. I know people who believed that Joe Biden’s inauguration would be interrupted by police, swarming the stage and installing Donald J Trump as the rightful president. These individuals went to bed on January 19, 2021, believing that they would see history change the next day. They were deceived by an internet troll whose rumors gained a following. The messages of despair when their predictions did not come to pass are downright heartbreaking. (More on QAnon here.)

Christians Can’t Resign Themselves to Apathy

Here we have landed in an age when things are hard to know and easy to know -- which ultimately lands us in a place where things are hard to know.

But as Christians, we cannot resign ourselves to a position of apathy. “Right, you read it on the internet, I’m sure it’s true,” comes the sarcastic refrain. And I agree -- as I said above, we need to have an eye on the information we consume. Even well-regarded, long-established media outlets have certain biases.

However, Christianity is a propositional faith. We understand certain statements about God, Jesus, man, sin, creation, and redemption...to be the truth.

We build our lives, families, and churches on statements that the God-man made about Himself:

“No one comes to the Father but through me.” (John 14:6)

“Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (John 6:37)

“My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36)

These and countless others form our bedrock: truth is knowable, and we build our lives on it. We cannot become apathetic in response to our information age, resigning ourselves to throwing up our hands and saying, “who knows?” As a general habit, Christians must understand truth to be something attainable, whether that be eternal truths or the latest internet trend.

I have been taken in by internet rumors in the past, and I expect that I will fall prey to them again. We must be on our guard, lest we become victims. However, the truth exists; we can know it; it can change lives. When we become all-time skeptics, we undermine our position as people of the truth.

(Note: as I was drafting this article, a relevant book came to press: Bonnie Kristian’s Untrustworthy. I listened to her interview on The Habit, and she also appeared on The Holy Post and Finding Holy — neither of which I have heard. But I ordered her book, and I’m excited to read it. My favorite quote was “somehow we’ve reached a point where we’re both gullible and cynical.”)

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For the Anglophiles

If you are interested in buying a 12th-century abbey, you may start here.

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Reads & Listens of the Week

I’m resharing Jonathan’s reshare here: Prudence and Cunning. “In the coming weeks, you will have many opportunities to use your voice to create new realities—to argue, to express your opinion, perhaps even to persuade. Will you use your creative powers to help others (and yourself) come into closer alignment with reality?”

One of my favorite books of the last year was Harrison Scott Key’s How to Stay Married (review here). Here’s an interview with the author.

If you have a houseful of hungry children who are still on summer vacation, and you’ve lost the will to deal with snack requests anymore, maybe the Lazy Genius’ snack episode will help you.

The Close Reads podcast recently went through To Kill a Mockingbird.

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All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful. - Flannery O’Connor; The Habit of Being