Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast, making theology central. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Saturday, February the 18th, 2023. It is currently 2.42 p.m. Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Let me tell you a story. Let me tell you a story and it goes back to the 2020 election. The election, the general election and the battle between Donald Trump and Joe Biden for presidency of the United States of America. Let's tell that story. Let's go back to that time. Let's go back to the election between Biden and Trump Who was going to win? Do you remember that? And everyone was so fired up, and this is going to happen, and this is going to happen, and everyone had their predictions, and everyone was worried about it, and it was a controversial time. Do you remember that time? Do you remember the election? Do you remember the fallout after the election? Do you remember that? Well, we're going to tell that story. But before we tell that story, before we tell you what happened, I mean, I think you know what happened, but before we tell you what happened, let's go back to something that occurred way before the 2020 election. way before anyone had ever heard of Joe Biden or Donald Trump, before anyone had ever even heard of the American presidency, before anyone had ever even heard of America. Let's go way, way back. Let's go all the way back to the time of Moses, when God gave Israel some instructions or, as we would say, some commandments, some very specific commandments that are not very, very difficult to understand. It doesn't require a lot of work on interpreting them. Here's one, Exodus 20, verse 16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. you're not to bear false witness against someone. You're not to bear false witness. And then if we go from Moses, we could go to the time of the Apostle Paul. We could go to the time of the Apostle Paul when Paul wrote the church He wrote the church at Ephesus. He wrote the church at Ephesus and he told them this. This is very important. Ephesians chapter four, verse 25. Paul writing to the church at Ephesus. Ephesians chapter four, verse 25. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Do not bear false witness, put away lying, speak the truth. Very simple, very straightforward. Do not bear false witness. Do not do that. Do not bear false witness. Put away lying and speak the truth. Very simple, very straightforward commands. Now, I understand. I understand something, that as human beings, even as believers, we still have a sinful nature. And we know that the human heart is deceitful above all things. So we know that we, in a sense, go about deceiving and being deceived. We go around just, whether we like it or not, we do bear false witness. Whether we like it or not, we tell lies. Whether we like it or not, we believe lies because we have this internal problem. But as Christians, as the church, you think that we would do everything in our power never to bear false witness, that we would not speak lies, we would speak the truth, we would do everything in our power to try to focus on pursuing truth, staying away from conspiracy theories and conjecture and speculation and wild accusations. that we would say, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to get drug down into the mud and the mire and the blood and the lies and the deception. I'm going to do everything I can to stay above that. And I'm going to try to focus on the things above. I'm going to try to keep my focus on the gospel. I'm going to try to keep my focus on the kingdom of God. I'm not going to get influenced by this crazy world of crazy thinking and accusation. We're going to stay above it. You would think that we would at least try. Well, we may fall down, but we'd be there to help each other. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't get caught up on that. No, no, no, no, no, no. Stop focusing on that. No, no, no. Do a Bible study. Listen to a sermon. Stop with all of the craziness and the conspiracy. Stop it. Stop it. I remember a long time ago, after the horrible tragedy at Sandy Hook, Oh, I remember it. It feels like it was yesterday. All of a sudden I started seeing Christians say, hey, the Sandy Hook shooting, it was staged and there were crisis actors and it was fake. There were even people on sermon audio. There were pastors producing basically podcasts saying, hey, this is some fake stuff. And you're like, what is happening here? What is going on? It was a crazy time. And I remember trying to speak against some of these crazy conspiracy theories that I remember that time, around that time, it was close to that time, that preachers were preaching that the flu vaccine was the mark of the beast. And it was just all of this crazy stuff. And every time I would speak against it, I would immediately get attacked like, Satan has blinded you and you don't see the truth and you don't see what's really happening. And I'm like, what is going on with Christians? How are we losing our ever-living mind? Why are we getting sucked into conspiracies and manipulation and lies? Why are we trafficking in this stuff? What is happening, right? And if I would criticize anything Alex Jones was saying, like his claims that Sandy Hook was fraudulent. It's amazing when he went to court and his depositions, sure had a different sounding take if you listen to all the audio tapes of those depositions. And of course he lost his trial. He's been sued for a billion dollars. And yes, it's amazing how all of a sudden he wasn't like, I've got the evidence to prove it. No, no, no, no, no, no. It was a completely different person. But then I started realizing that it was Christians who were starting to be influenced by these voices, putting forth these ideas, and these conspiracies, and these theories, and these agendas. And I still to this day get emails like, conspiracies are a real thing. How can you be so blind to conspiracies? It's almost like they've lost all ability to be rational. And I just want to go back, don't bear false witness. put away lying, speak the truth. I mean, that's a simple formula, right? Simple formula, but you know what can happen? It's subtle. As a Christian, you can start being influenced more by, wait for it, are you ready for this? You can start being more influenced by a political party. You can start being more influenced by the political ideology. You can start being more influenced by culture wars. You can start being more influenced—here we go, this is the key to transitioning into what we're going to be talking about—but listen, listen, you can be more influenced by a news network. is influencing you. Is it the Word of God, or is it conspiracy theories? Is it the Word of God, or is it a political party? Is it the Word of God, or is it culture wars? Is it the Word of God, or is it a news network? What is truly influencing your mind? Because in a very subtle way, these things can pull you away from God's word and you're no longer thinking, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I don't need to bear false witness. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I got to speak the truth. I got to make sure this is accurate. I got to verify. I got to check. I got to be careful. I don't want to speculate. I don't want to accuse. I want to traffic in truth. I want to traffic in reason. I want to be a light, not add more darkness to the situation. But I watched Christian after Christian. Get pulled into this stuff and you just and you start talking as soon as they start talking you just want to be like what? Just stop now. I think most christians who know me in in person They just know that they sometimes may even get ready to say something But then they'll kind of pull back because they know that i'm getting ready to look at them going. I know i'm not i'm not playing your little political Conspiratorial madness i'm not playing the game i'm staying out of it if you want to traffic in that go for it Now, this brings us right back to the 2020 election. Donald Trump, Joe Biden, the fight is on. And the election was over. And Donald Trump lost the election. He lost the election. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Not according to many Christians. Because all of a sudden within the Christian world, you started hearing, it's rigged. The election is rigged. The election is rigged. It was fraudulent. These digital voting machines, they were hacked. There was a conspiracy on. They changed the votes. They dropped these votes. The whole thing was rigged. It was horrible. We need to stand against. And I'm like, well, what is happening? What is happening? What is happening? And if you go back to my podcast at that time, I was playing audio clips from Christian radio where they were like, Sidney Powell, she's the one you can trust. Rudy Giuliani, you can listen to him. These are great men of character, or a great woman and a great man of character. You can believe them. The election was stolen. It was rigged and we should stand against it. Donald Trump won the election. Joe Biden stole it. This is horrible. This is horrible. Democracy is under attack." And I'm like, what is happening here? How are Christians doing this? Now again, I say this all the time. If the world is running around, they're all over there in the pigsty fighting and screaming and throwing mud at each other and spitting and yelling and accusing, I would expect that. But the church, I would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, guys, guys, guys, we're not going there. We're going there. We're not going to bear false witness. We're going to speak the truth. We're going to put away lying. And we're going to focus on Christ. We're going to focus on theology. We're going to focus on Bible. We're not going, we're not going to be in, but the church just like dive in, boom, and just pull. And you would hear references to it in sermons and Christian podcasts. And again, Christian radio, the number one culprit that I listened to and showed you over and over was American family radio. They promoted it over and over. The election was stolen. The election was stolen over and over and over. They promoted the theory that the January six riots. on the Capitol, that it was, it was not Trump supporters. They were set up. It was a, it was a setup. It was fake. There were, there were fake people there pretending to be Trump supporters. I mean, it was just, I could not believe what was happening to Christianity before my very eyes. And, and it's one of those things that I could only address so much because if I sit here and addressed it week after week after week after week after week after week, then all I would do is be jumping into the fray and just be, and I didn't, I was like, nope, we're gonna do Bible study exercise. Well, we're gonna do this. And in the midst of a lot of that craziness, I tried to get people to read The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Akempis. I tried a lot of things to try to get people focused on this other stuff. Then it was the whole thing about COVID. And then, no, we're not gonna, Romans 13 doesn't apply. And it was just like one thing after another. And you're like, I think the church has so abandoned actually Christianity that if Jesus came knocking on the door, I mean, the church would open the door. Are you a Republican? Are you a Republican? Do you believe COVID is a fraud? Do you believe masks are a tool of the new world order? Do you believe that the vaccine will inject micro robots into your body that will be turned on by 5G and then the Antichrist will control you if you're not leave? And you're like, but that was Jesus. I'm sorry, he wasn't a Republican conspiracy theorist. We don't listen to him. That's almost how bad it got. And so I was like, what is happening? What is happening? What is happening? Well, what is happening, or what was happening, was something else was starting to influence the minds of Christians. No longer Exodus, no longer Ephesians, no longer Moses, no longer Paul, no longer the inspired word of God, but politics. News media, conspiracy theorists, Many Christians were getting sucked into QAnon conspiracy theories. Election is rigged conspiracy theories. Now, I know I'm gonna get 50 emails, but, but, but, but, Democrats, but, but, liberals. I'm talking about the church. I'm talking about the church. All right, conservative Bible-believing churches. We even listened to some sermons from, I think, around that time where we heard some of this stuff being preached from the pulpit. It was a sad time. But something else happened in this story. You know those voting machines, those digital voting machines that people were using that declaimed that they were hacked? Well, some of those companies have decided enough's enough, we're suing these people. We're gonna sue these people into oblivion for their lies, for their misrepresentations. And it's amazing, someone can talk a big game in front of a microphone, but when you're put into a court, like deposition, and you have to now testify under oath, it's amazing how the story changes. And we're watching that kind of unfold right now with a little news channel that seems to be very influential in the world of evangelical Christianity. That would be Fox News, who so they were so committed to the election was rigged. The election was a lie. Oh, they were committed to that narrative. They were committed at least on camera. What we're finding out is maybe not on camera. They weren't as committed to the idea. Let's listen to our report, and then I have a report just to show you. Now, I don't really care that this is about Fox News. If you get that, you're missing the point, because you're going to say, well, what about CNN? What about MSNBC? I'm focusing on Fox News because that's where many conservative Christians, they think that this is the bastion of truth. They think it's basically messages from the Trinity. because it's insane how many Christians almost worship at the altar of Fox News instead of worshiping the true God. And they say, no, I don't worship Fox News. Yeah, but you see, when I listen to you talk, I don't hear Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I hear Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. And when I start hearing Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity more than I hear Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, then you're being influenced by a news narrative, not a scriptural narrative. That's my concern here. It's not about Fox News. But I want to show you that you are being influenced by something that didn't necessarily believe what they were telling you. Let's listen. I want to rewind now back to November 2020, election night. Millions of people were watching Fox News when it became the first major network to project Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, had won the key state of Arizona in the presidential race. It was the right call, but it threw the network into a crisis. We're learning vivid new details now about how that crisis played out, thanks to legal filings in a blockbuster defamation lawsuit against Fox. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik joins us. And good morning, David. Good morning, Asma. So why was Fox News thrown into a panic simply because its journalists correctly called a state that Biden had indeed won? Well, this isn't about journalistic values at Fox. It's about brand identity. And you don't have to take my word for it. That's what executives, including the chief executive at Fox News, said to one another behind the scenes. Fox viewers, loyal Trump voters, started bleeding to smaller rival Newsmax. So within days of Election Day, you saw Fox stars beginning to air and seemingly embrace at times conspiracy theories without solid evidence, including that this vote tech company, Dominion Voting Systems, switched Trump votes to Biden. Now, please, no. What happened is they went into a panic because they called a state for Biden. Fox viewers got mad. Many of them started running to other news sources, right? They started going away. And so then they were like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. We gotta stay true to our political affiliation. We gotta stay true to what the people want. Now, the news media is never to get the people what they want, just like a pastor or a church is never to give the people what they want. You are to give them truth, you are to pursue truth at all costs. With or without offense to friend or foe, we speak of the world exactly as it goes. That used to be a quote that was on the top of the Abilene Reporter News. I remember as a little kid reading, looking at the Abilene Reporter News and seeing that quote, and I always thought that quote is Awesome because I thought I thought the news media was like we're gonna pursue truth. I don't care if you don't like us We're gonna pursue truth. I don't care if you get ticked off and I love that like rebellious Attitude well sooner or later the news media became about no no no pick a team Please that team Don't go against that team. Because if you go against the team, you lose the ratings, you lose the rate. And I know, look, I understand, I do a podcast. I see the numbers, I get analytics all the time. You're on this chart, you're in this podcast, you're in front of this mini podcast. You know, ooh, you've had a 30% drop, what are you doing? Oh, wait, you lost five followers, you lost, I see those numbers. I try not to let them move me because sometimes I'll be like, why am I doing this series? Nobody's listening to this series. So I understand it. And when you have billions of dollars involved, it becomes very, very, very, very, very, very, very important. So they ticked off everyone. And so then next thing you know, they start peddling the conspiracy theories and the lies. The election was rigged. The election was rigged. I don't care what Fox News is doing. I don't really care. I mean, ultimately that's the world. I don't really care. I would never rely on any one news agency to get my information because you're going to have to try to listen to countless numbers of them. And that's why if you look at any of my podcast apps, I subscribe to what? I don't know, probably easily a thousand podcasts. 50% are probably news from every imaginable news source under the sun, the moon, and the heavens. I listen to anything because I've got, oh, Fox News said this, but wait a minute, MSNB said this, Tucker Carlson said this, but Rachel Maddow said this. Wait a minute, this person on CNN said, wait a minute, this person, wait, the BBC, They said this wait al jazeera said this wait a minute sky news said this and I can go on and on abc said this cbs said this Cnbc and I and I try to just try to figure out and I try to be very careful not to jump to any conclusion Because you want to try to find out what the truth is So so but I don't i'm not worried about what fox news but here's what happened fox news started this and I almost instantaneously Guess what you started hearing on Christian radio? Clips from Fox News. They were citing Fox News as their authoritative source that the election was rigged, that the election was stolen, and that Christians should be outraged. And I was like, there was a part of me that was like, there's no way Fox News would just straight up lie. So, so like, there was a part of me like, what do I do here? What do I do here? I still called it all into question because I was just like, something doesn't make sense here. Something doesn't make sense. turned out I was right, and let me make it very clear, me taking a stand against Fox News and taking a stand against Christian Radio, I got bombarded with emails that I'm a liberal, that I'm a part of the New World Order, that I'm Illuminati, that I'm a Satanist, that, I mean, it was crazy. Now, none of those people have ever come back to apologize, of course not. Why would they? Because, you know, Christians don't do that. But okay. But my issue is not what Fox News was doing. It's how it was influencing things like American Family Radio. Fox News is being sued. If it was up to me, American Family Radio would be sued into oblivion, and every other Christian radio station that promoted the lie and acted like what they were saying was true. But let's hear what happened. We now know this was incredible hypocrisy behind the scenes. The Fox stars and execs were trashing the idea of these allegations and broadcasting them anyway. crazy. This is trash. This is not behind the scenes. They knew it was a lie, but they were coming on air saying this is the truth and Christians were eating it up and in Christians went on social media. They spread lies bearing false witness and lying, which is a sin now. We all sin. So I'm not in any way trying to say that I'm better than anyone, right? We all lie in some way, shape or form, probably even to ourself or to other people. There's lots of deception that we're all a part. We know that. But the issue was many of those Christians, when confronted with the lies or challenged, they would not repent. And many of those Christians who posted that nonsense are yet to go back and apologize, are yet to go back and tell everyone that they were wrong. So the people on Fox News reporting it, They knew it was a lie. Let's listen. Biden. We now know this was incredible hypocrisy behind the scenes. The Fox stars and execs were trashing the idea of these allegations and broadcasting them anyway. OK, so David, give us an example of what Fox's viewers were encountering. Let's take a listen. Take Fox News's Maria Bartiromo, what she said on November 29th, 2022, then President Trump, after he alleged on her show that the Dominion machines were engineered to commit fraud against him. This election was a fraud. It was a rigged election. This is disgusting and we cannot allow America's election to be corrupted. So under oath, Bartiromo conceded to Dominion's lawyers the claims Trump and his camp were relying on lacked any credibility. She called them kooky later on. Fox News repeatedly hosted this Trump ally, an attorney named Sidney Powell, who made wild claims. Tucker Carlson pretty effectively showed she had no proof in his interview with her, but many of his colleagues presented her as a serious figure. even while trashing her in private text to one another. Sean Hannity had her on his show privately. He called her and her assertions outlandish. Another corporate official at Fox Corp called it mind-blowingly nuts. So, David, this gets to how we know all of this, because Dominion has been making these claims for, what, about two years now. What makes these new details notable? Well, Dominion lays all of this out in a filing yesterday with all kinds of new evidence they've gained in this process called discovery and the cynicism and the fear inside Fox News is presented in technicolor. You have these executives and star hosts who are privately clear eyed. There's no evidence Dominion committed fraud. None. Yet they're angry, not at the claims, but that at their newsroom colleagues, journalists who say that there's no credence to these allegations on the air to Fox viewers and in public. Many of those viewers don't want to hear it. So you had one Fox News reporter accurately fact checking claims of fraud. that appeared on Fox's air in a tweet. Tucker Carlson privately called for her to be fired, and she pulled the tweet down. In another instance, Fox's CEO privately denounced a top Washington editor for Fox for failing to protect the station's brand. A reporter is trying to do fact-checking and is threatened to be fired. And it has to take the tweet down. Don't fact-check. We know these people are crazy. We know this is nuts. We know this is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. We know these people are insane. We know. But you know what? This is our brand. We got to keep promoting the lie. We got to keep promoting the lie. And that to me calls, I mean, obviously, look, I've been questioning the credibility of Fox News for pretty much ever. OK, well, not ever, but for a very, very long time. But again, the world's going to do what the world does. It's the fact that the church Christians never said, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. These are serious allegations that could have profound impact on the democracy, on voting, on everything, on the trust of me. This could have serious societal consequences. We're supposed to be light. We're not supposed to be darkness. We're supposed to be salt. We're supposed to be the ones helping, not hurting. We're supposed to see what we can do to benefit people. We're supposed to do what we can. We're not supposed to be lying. We're not supposed to be trafficking and lying. We're not supposed to be bearing false witness. So as a church, we should have said, no, no, no, no, we're not going here. We're not going here. We're not going here. We're going to be very careful. We're going to get people to focus on Christ. We're going to get people to focus on the certainty of God's word. But we jumped right into it. And as a result, we spread these lies. And those Christians and those Christian institutions that spread these lies because they listen to Fox News, those Christian organizations owe everyone an apology. And some of those same Christian organizations should be sued into oblivion, just like Fox News is right now under the threat of being sued into oblivion. Responding to all of this, what is it saying? They're saying a few big things. They're saying Dominion's trying to punish it for covering the news for allegations put forth by the then sitting president. They say Dominion is cherry picking these messages. They say it's trying to chill speech so that people don't cover things they don't want it covered. And they say Dominion didn't really suffer the harm it claims and certainly doesn't deserve one point six billion dollars it's seeking in the suit. Very briefly, David, what happens next? So there's a trial set for April, and generally defamation cases are hard to win. This is an unusually evidence-rich record that Dominion's been presenting in these filings. So as a result, a number of media lawyers I've talked to really do expect a settlement. That's if Dominion is willing to take the money and if, and this is a real question, they can wrangle some kind of apology out of Fox News, which the network has so far been unwilling to give. And PRs David Folkenflik, thank you as always for your reporting. You bet. And I'm not shocked that Fox News won't give an apology. I am shocked that Christians will not apologize. Here's another story about the same thing. Fox News hosts spread election lies they didn't believe were you fooled by them. Defamation is a very difficult claim to prove. The party wronged by untrue and malicious statements has to show that the other side acted with actual malice. That's what Dominion Voting System says Fox News and some of its hosts did while spreading lies about the company's voting machines. leading people to believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. And look, I received emails from Christians trying to prove this to me. They're like, look, look, look, look, look, look, the election was stolen. Look, look, look, look. And I would be like, I can't believe I'm having these conversations. How am I having these conversations with actual people who believe in the word of God? How is this happening? But you know what? Then I have to look at my life and go, how in the world am I doing this? And I believe in the word of God. But it's just the reality of what we are. But at some point you got to wake up and realize that you were deceived. Journalists have every right to treat what they believe to be false statements as news and to report them. But if we believe those statements to be false, or know them to be false, we have a responsibility to not treat them as facts and promote them. Dominion says Fox News did just that in the aftermath of the election. Documents from discovery process of the cases were reported on Friday in the New York Times. Sidney Powell is lying, Tucker Carlson said. Here are just a few of the damning things Fox hosts and executives are quoted in these documents as saying at a time when the network was reinforcing so much of Trump's bogus election fraud claims. For example, Fox host Tucker Carlson wrote to host Laura Ingram on November the 18th, 2020, Sidney Powell is lying by the way, I caught her, it's insane. Ingram responded, Sidney is a complete nut. no one will work with her, ditto with Rudy Giuliani. Carlson said, our viewers are good people and they believe it. Carlson meantime referred to Powell as an unguided missile and as dangerous as, and I quote, hell. According to Dominion's filing, Fox host Sean Hannity said in a deposition, that whole narrative that Sidney Powell was pushing, I did not believe it for one second. So Sean Hannity did not believe it for one second, but he, on his radio show and television show, promoted it over and over and over and over again. The top dog at Fox, Rupert Murdoch, is quoted as calling Trump's election fraud claims, really crazy stuff and terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear. Yes, it was damaging everyone. Speaking of the claim that Dominion rigged the election, Foxton political editor, said no reasonable person would have thought that. Fox's managing editor said it's remarkable how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things. Did you buy it? Were you one of those scammed into believing voter fraud claims because you trusted these people? This is an example of what happened when a Fox reporter actually tried to do the right thing. Fox reporter at one point tweeted, there was no evidence of voter fraud from Dominion. The court filing says Fox host Tucker Carlson responded, please get her fired. It needs to stop immediately. Like tonight, it's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down, not a joke. The reporter deleted the tweet. The documents are available for anyone to see. Go ahead and read them for yourself. Make up your own mind. There are redactions that the Times is trying to get a court to remove. Who knows what's there? Most cases like this never get to an actual courtroom. There's often a big fat settlement with a big fat non-disclosure clause. I hope that doesn't happen. I hope the case goes all the way to trial put everyone's cards on the table, make everyone testify under oath, leave it to a jury. Again, I'm not here to bash Fox News or even to support Fox News. They're irrelevant to me in this story. They're so irrelevant to me. The only thing that bothers me is how relevant they seem to be to Christians. Christians just sit at the table, like they got a big bowl of cereal, and they just keep spooning it in, spooning it in, going, yeah, yeah, yeah, lie, lie, lie, lie, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they believe everything, and then they start talking it. And sometimes when you hear a Christian talk, you're just like, what is happening? Do you spend your life watching Fox News turn and find something else to watch? Balance it out at least for crying out loud. Please do something. What are we being influenced by? What are you being influenced by? What am I being influenced by? And I've said it so many times, it doesn't matter Republican or Democrat, none of that matters. All we should care about is do not bear false witness, put away lying, and speak the truth. That's all we should care about. That's all we should care about. That's all we should care about. And I remember people yelling and screaming at me about the COVID vaccine, yelling and screaming about this, and yelling and screaming about this. And sometimes you were just like, I never mind. It's just no point in having the conversation. Now I can understand that you can say, you know, I just don't know. I'm struggling here. Well, are you struggling because you've been influenced by Fox news? Are you struggling because you want something to be true so bad you wanted to believe that Trump won? You did not want Joe Biden. So you started just believing it. You're what, what caused you to think this way? What caused you to promote it? And now that it's clear that people behind the scenes thought the whole thing was crazy, thought the whole election was rigged narrative was crazy, the people at Fox News, they knew it was rigged, or they knew that it wasn't rigged, and they, in a sense, rigged their coverage. They knew that they were spreading things that they did not believe themselves, and was more worried about a stock price than they were about truth. But guess what? Come Monday night, come Tuesday night, there'll be Christians. They're ready to listen to Tucker Carlson and to Sean Hannity. I got no problem if you want to watch them, but you better make sure you're not allowing it to influence you. And look, I don't watch Fox News. Every once in a while, we'll turn it over there, see what's going on. I do listen to Sean Hannity if I'm in the car at that time of day, because I like to sometimes listen to talk radio when I'm in the car to see what people are talking about. Sometimes I'll turn on Tucker Carlson just to see what I'm supposed to be furious about today, and what I'm supposed to be outraged about today, what I'm supposed to be mad about, because, you know, that's what they got to sell, outrage, panic, fear. They got to get you caught, doom, doom, doom, doom, you know, news alert. They got to get you upset about whatever, because it's that fear and that outrage that keeps you watching. I understand the game. I understand how it has to work. Christians, I think sometimes we're not very, I don't think we're very, what would be the word? What would be the word I want to use? I don't know if we're very sophisticated in our handling of technology and media. We're bombarded with messages. And for many Christians, it's like, Oh, I saw it on Facebook. Whoa, that's gotta mean it's true. Oh, I saw it on Fox News. Well, you know, that's gotta be, that came directly from the throne room of God. I mean, you have to know which, and it's like, how do you not realize that you're buying into lies and conspiracy theories and half truths? And what's crazy, what always bothers me is people will buy into something and then when you try to question it, when you try to challenge it, you're viewed immediately as the enemy. So really the moral of this story is not Fox News. And I'm gonna get 900 emails now. I don't care what the people in Fox News said. It was rigged, Fox News. See, Fox News is liberal now. That's why I watch Newsmax. That's why, yeah, okay, look, just look. Go find your fellow Republican conspiracy theorist and hang out. I'm definitely not in that camp. I'm not in that camp. But if all I ask you, if you claim to be a Christian, at some point you gotta ask yourself, what is influencing your thinking the most? And Christian Radio promoted these lies. And I believe many on Christian radio believe these lies to be true. And you know why I think they believe them to be true? Because they heard it on Fox News. They heard it on Sean Hannity. They heard it on Tucker Carlson. They heard it on Fox. And because many times those Christian programs were playing clips from Fox News. I remember Christian Radio telling me Sidney Powell was the most trustworthy and one of the greatest attorneys, a person of character. In the meantime, the people at Fox News and behind the scenes was like, she's nuts. She's crazy. Christian Radio was like, Sidney Powell, she's a genius. And you're like, oh man, what is happening? What is happening? What is happening to us? Now, you could argue that if you're going to be a Christian organization and do news, then you have to do news, meaning you can't just simply listen to what Fox News said on a Monday night. and then you come on the air Tuesday morning, and you simply report what Fox News said as if it's authoritative, as if it's factual because you heard it on Fox News. If Christian media wants to do news, they gotta do the news themselves. You have to hire a team, and you have to have investigative journalists, and you have to get your own sources, and you have to investigate, and you cannot just, because I think much of Christian news just has become, well, what did the conservative news media, okay, Fox News said it, we will report it. Sean Hannity said we will, Tucker Carlson said we will report it. That's not doing news. It's something we have to think long and hard about as Christians and find where we've all been, where we've all been guilty. Now, you may not have had any problems with the 2020 election and making all these bogus claims while the people behind the scenes of Fox News is basically knowing it was all fraudulent and kept selling it to you. Maybe you didn't have any problems with that. But if you did, please stop today and at least consider what you've done. Now for me, I didn't have a problem with the election stuff. I've got my own problems. I got my own sin. I have my own struggles. and a world where lies abound everywhere. It is more and more important for Christians to grab onto the truth of God's Word and to be as wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. Thanks for listening. You can email me, newsifatyahoo.com. Newsifatyahoo.com. That's newsifatyahoo.com. Thanks for listening. God bless.