Contending for Truth on the Internet

Recently someone forwarded me a broadcast from a North Carolina Christian evangelist named Dr. Scott Johnson. The broadcast, entitled Contending for Truth, had me doubled over in laughter. You can listen to the seven minute Part One: Wade Burleson Is a Secret Agent and the even more bizarre five minute Part Two: Wade Burleson Is a Secret Agent and then make your own assessment. My wife wasn't laughing. She said, "Wade, people who don't know you or our church might actually think this stuff is true." I reflected a moment on her concerns, and then busted out laughing again.

According to Dr. Johnson, I am a secret agent of the United States government, on the payroll of FEMA and possibly the Department of Homeland Security. "Tool of Satan" is Dr. Johnson's favorite moniker for yours truly. Dr. Johnson has received information that the auditorium of Emmanuel Enid is being "remodeled" (which it is) in these perilous economic times at the behest of the federal government. Based upon the information he has received about our church removing the "pews"  and replacing them with chairs, not to mention his own on-line investigation of me and our church, Dr. Johnson publicly declares that I am working closely with the federal government to turn our church into a collection site for dissidents, planning to ship them by train to a federal re-education camp.

According to the broadcast (Part II), the government is preparing a former federal prison in Watonga as a "confinement facility" for those in northwest Oklahoma who believe in civil liberty, private gun ownership, and other individual freedoms. The government has recently hired 400 security guards to work at Watonga, and our auditorium remodel is in preparation for Emmanuel to become a temporary holding center where government rebels can identified and then shipped by train to the Watonga prison. Dr. Johnson's says the railroad tracks that run next to our church will be used for human cargo trains to transport rebels to the "re-education camp." The way the government will identify these dissidents is through "Pastor Burleson ratting out on his congregants," revealing himself as the government agent he is.

Obviously, not everything you read or hear on the Internet is true. I was laughing because at least the claims of Dr. Johnson are so bizarre they can be seen for their falsehoods. It's not near as funny when the character assassinations are subtle, intentional, and designed to promote an agenda. The Roman general Pliny believed he could prevent assassination attempts by developing an immune system resistant to poison. The general would take small doses of poison "with a grain of salt" in order to be able to swallow the poison. Our English idiom "take it with a grain of salt" comes from Pliny's practice. After many years of being in the public eye, I have learned that anything said about me on the Internet needs to be taken "with a grain of salt."