When I was in college I liked to go for early morning walks. One day I was walking by some sheet-metal buildings on campus, when I happened to look up and notice an ornament at the apex of each roof. The construction company—Morton—had installed a weather vane, embellished with their company name, on each of their buildings. However, when I compared the three weather vanes on three nearby buildings that breezy winter morning, I noticed that they were each pointing in a different direction.
Evidently Morton needed to invest more in research and development. The weather vanes that they apparently took such pride in, didn’t work. Worse, because their ornaments looked like functional weather vanes, they conveyed false information. North, south, east, west—the turn of the arrow—it was all bogus.
This reminds me of what sometimes happens in our churches, ministries, schools, and institutions (not to mention secular entities). We may look to these organizations to learn which way the winds of the world are blowing, but what we see and hear may not reflect any reality. The beat of the pulse, the blips on the radar, the charts on the wall may be just artificial constructions not connected to any real data. A dollop of hearsay, a spritz of intuition, a few sprinkles of conventional wisdom, and we’re served up news. Like those weather vanes, their message may be right once in a while, as chance often is. But really they’re just pointing out their own agenda, and insisting on it no matter what.
So what’s to be done? In our own organizations we need accountability. We need more questions like, “Yes, that sounds lovely—but show me the facts.” And for other organizations that we look to or trust, we need to take a fresh look from time to time and do some critical thinking. We can caution, “It sounds plausible. But let’s do a little homework and see if this stands up to scrutiny.” (Reading rumor sites is not homework.)
Our business is truth, and that’s a tall order. It doesn’t take much non-truth to turn truth into rubbish. Now we see through a glass darkly. We live in a world flooded with pseudo-information—generalizations, deceit, quackery, complexities and jargon that lead to misunderstanding. And that means we need extra precaution to keep our message on track.
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