On June 2, lightning struck First Congregational United Church in Spencer, Massachusetts, sparking a fire that destroyed the church.
Initial reports of the conflagration emphasized the hope inspired when a collapsed beam and a standing chimney combined to form the shape of a cross.
Days later, however, self-proclaimed âfact-checkersâ sprang into action when a viral video showed the âwoke LGBTQ+ churchâ engulfed in flames.
Snopesâ mendacious âfact-checkers,â whom the New York Post once called ââPants on Fireâ partisans,â investigated the matter.
First, Snopes reported that the âwoke LGBTQ+ churchâ in question had indeed âpublicly posted positive messages about Pride month in recent years.â
Then, Snopes conceded that a lightning strike had indeed caused the fire that destroyed the church.
Snopes declared, however, that âitâs a subjective, evidence-free conclusion to assert that the two things were linked, and that a higher power chose to burn down the church.â
Thus the Snopes âfact-checkers,â who claim special guardianship over fact itself, took issue not with fact but with context. This alone speaks volumes about the nature of âfact-checking.â
Imagine how the world must appear to people who take themselves seriously while âfact-checkingâ such incidents.
Imagine mustering the combination of contempt and phony earnestness required to tell other adults that âitâs a subjective, evidence free conclusion to assertâŚthat a higher power chose to burn down the church.â
In any case, the stupendous audacity of âfact-checkersâ is only half the story.
The other half of the story involves the church itself.
In âFern Seed and Elephants,â an essay originally published in 1959 under the title âModern Theology and Biblical Criticism,â C.S. Lewis complained that theological colleges were producing New Testament critics whose Biblical scholarship strayed further and further from the actual text.
âThe undermining of the old orthodoxy has been mainly the work of divines engaged in New Testament criticism,â Lewis wrote.
Whatever one thinks of âmodern theology,â either in 1959 or in the present day, there is no question that progressive churches often take the lead in âunderminingâ the faith by attempting to conform it to prevailing cultural fashions.
According to Snopes, the offending tweet âclaimed that the church in the clip had embraced âwoke LGBTQ+ people.'â
Here is another âfact-checkâ in need of correction, for the tweet in question did not use the word âembraced.â
Had it done so, it would not have distinguished the First Congregational United Church in any meaningful way. All true Christian churches embrace everyone as sinners and children of God.
The First Congregational United Church became a âwoke LGBTQ+ churchâ when it advertised its support for so-called âpride month.â
That is a different matter altogether.
If a church can call itself âChristianâ while simultaneously supporting a cult that maintains as a primary article of faith both the sexualization and required mutilation of children, then that church can call itself anything.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
