The powerlessness of lies

A quote widely attributed to Christian author C. S. Lewis sets a high standard for honest living: “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when nobody’s watching.” But there’s a 21st-century propaganda technique that takes the opposite approach. It involves doing the wrong thing—lying—in full view. Those using this technique, described as the “firehose of falsehood,” flood various channels, such as news and social media, with a slew of messages made up of partial truths and outright fictions.

Such deception aims to confuse and overwhelm us, so it demands alertness to avoid either adopting such lying narratives or reacting to them. While praying about that need recently, I thought about the phrase “firehose of falsehood.” I saw that it’s also an apt way to describe the flood of false assertions we are all continuously faced with—for instance, that we are material beings, subject to lack and limitation, governed by a mortal and self-centered mentality, and “without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). 

Moral qualities that we can express, such as honesty and integrity, contradict this material model of being. They are a window into the true nature we each have that is wholly spiritual—born of divine Spirit, God. This spiritual nature can seem to be way in the background, but Christian Science shines a light on Spirit as creating and governing who we truly are. The Bible reveals that Spirit is Truth, and even glimpsing this fact can prompt us to question the deluge of material assumptions about our origin and existence. Can these assumptions also be true, or do they represent errors in thought that are the opposite of Truth?