In 1475 Franciscan firebrand Bernadino da Fetre preached against the Jews. He lit a flame that torched history to this day.
In Trent, Italy, a Christian infant Simon, disappeared. His body was found near the home of a Jewish community leader. Every Jew (men, women and children), was arrested. After 15 days of horrific treatment they ‘confessed’.
The fanatical Bernadino da Feltre preached a series of sermons condemning the Jews. They murdered the child, he insisted. They drained his blood and drank it during Passover, he declared.
The Prince-Bishop of Trent Johannes IV Hinderbach ordered the entire Trent community of Jews to be arrested and tortured. Fifteen Jews were burned at the stake
Surrounding communities inflamed by the situation, committed more atrocities against the Jewish people.
Although the Pope tried to intervene Hinderbach would have none of it.
History records the tragic incidents of the ‘blood libel.’ The wickedly fabricated categorization of the child-murdering, blood-drinking Jews continues in anti-Semitic rantings to this day.
Fake News has been a hot topic proclaimed often by US President Donald Trump. It is not new.
If the map doesn’t agree with the ground, the map is wrong.
The Lord gave clear and precise instruction to Moses on the Fake News front “You will not spread a false report.” (Exodus 23: 1) Very specific, very clear. With this verse in mind, much journalism today is little more than gossip and sadly many are deceived.
In 1903 the cheeky Clarksburgh Daily Telegraph set a trap. They suspected their rival the Clarksburgh Daily Mail was pirating their stories.
The Daily Telegraph reported a foreigner Mejk Swenekafew had been shot and was in a critical condition. A more detailed ‘report’ followed the next day in the Daily Mail. Oops! The name Swenekafew spells ‘we fake news’ backwards.
Although that story brings a smile not all fake news is good natured.
Haman
In the Book of Esther wicked Haman proved to be a master of fake news. He compiled a long list of fake accusations against the Jews. He laced his charges with a mix of some half-truths and a smidgen of truth here and there. He set out to fool the King. “The time is now ripe,” said Haman, ‘for persecuting the Jews.” (If you have knowledge of Jewish culture by now you have appropriately uttered a boo or two. Jews boo at the name of Haman).
The outcome for Haman was not what he expected. What he wished for the Jews, he himself received.
Sadly the Haman hate spilled into church pulpits. The great Christian preacher John Chrystostom (AD 354-530) wrote:
“The synagogue is worse than a brothel and a drinking shop; it is a den of scoundrels, a temple of demons, the cavern of devils, a criminal assembly of the assassins of Christ…I hate the Jews…It is the duty of all Christians to hate the Jews.”
Beware the same confused theology is repeated today, often with more polite wording but just as deadly rhetoric.
I watched a TV interview recently with Dr John Hagee. He recalled, he received death threats when he suggested Christian support for Israel and the Jewish people.
Martin Luther the hero of the Reformation declared his hatred in his book ‘On the Jews and their Lies.’
Luther wrote:
“Their private houses must be destroyed and devastated, they could be lodged on stables. Let the magistrates burn their synagogues…We will be compelled to expel them like dogs.. We are at fault not slaying them.”
These words inspired Adolph Hitler and the silence of the German Church throughout the holocaust was devastating. This was genuine hate but fake theology.
The New York Times has come under scrutiny for what was Holocaust denial in their coverage. Owned by Jews of German descent, they were better placed to be very aware of events. In the NYT 26 out of 24,000 front-page stories featured Holocaust reports. In most of those stories the victims were described as ‘refugees’. Jews were identified only six times on page one. Surely this was fake news by censorship.
Today fake news flows incessantly from the Palestinian Authority. Bassam Tawil (Gatestone Institute) wrote:
“While Palestinian mosque preachers, political activists, journalists and senior officials have long been preoccupied with the mission of delegitimizing Israel and demonizing Jews, other Palestinians also fabricate “news” in order to further the Israeli death count.
The epidemic of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” which has recently flooded the internet, is not new to Palestinian culture. In fact, “fake news” has long been an essential component of the Palestinian campaign to delegitimize Israel, demonize Jews and even to cite false claims. Historically, for example, Jordan illegally seized Jerusalem and the West Bank in the 1948 war and proceeded to ethnically cleanse the area of Jews; in the 1967 war, the Israelis merely took their land back.” (Palestinians: Fake News and ‘Alternative Facts’, Gatestone Institute, March 9, 2017)
The head of Apple Tim Cook said, “Fake News is killing people’s minds.”
Stanford University describes Fake News as ‘misinformation.’ In a systematic study Stanford analysed 570 fake news websites and 10,240 fake news stories on Facebook and Twitter between January 2015 and July 2018.
The news media has written a lot about fake news and other forms of misinformation, but scholars are still trying to understand it—for example, how it travels and why some people believe it and even seek it out.
Fake is phony, deception, counterfeit, fraud, fabricated, misinformation and fictitious. I read a phrase once that seems so right . “If the map doesn’t agree with the ground, the map is wrong.”
The prophet Isaiah wrote:
“Justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter.” (Isaiah 59:14)
We must be alert. Truth is divine and it is our safe place. Truth sets us free.
0 Comments