When I was a young man I came to understand the brilliance of my father. Like millions of others I learned at his feet. I watched him lay down careful arguments like so many dominoes destined to reach a predictable end. Which is why I spent so much time trying to coax him into entering the fray with every error I ran across in the church. His response demonstrated not just his knowledge, but his wisdom. He would explain to me, “The last thing anyone needs to do is to engage that particular fringe group. No matter how badly you might refute them, all you end up doing is increasing their visibility.” He knew both how to answer a fool according to his folly, and when not to.
I would argue that not only is it a foolish thing to answer obscure folly but also to answer widespread deep folly. Doing so, in both instances, grants credibility where it doesn’t belong. Some ideas, another wise man once said, deserve only to be hooted off the stage. Which is not always easy for us.
For one thing, when the earnest unbeliever makes his outrageous claim and we laugh it appears we are not playing nice. While nice isn’t a fruit of the Spirit it is understandable that others might think so. We are held by the Lord to a certain standard of behavior toward His enemies. Which is not at all the same thing as being held hostage by the standards of His enemies. I fear, however, that our commitment to being nice, to not hooting nonsense off the stage, is grounded in the fact that doing so gets us hooted out of polite company. We are cowed cowards. We’re willing to fight, politely, which just plays into their hands.
It is not a bold and heroic thing to stand up and say that while there may confused boys and confused girls there are still, in the end, only boys and girls. The reason it is not bold and heroic is not because they will not screech and gnash at us for saying so. It is not bold and heroic because everyone, everyone, even the screeching and gnashing, know good and well that there are only boys and girls. Just like every fawning, flattering, lickspittle subject of the slow streaking emperor knew good and well that he was altogether in his altogether. Their rage isn’t because you won’t believe the lie they believe. It is because you won’t affirm the lie they know is a lie.
My father once overheard a conversation on a train. At a table near his on the dining car one woman was telling another woman about her amazing time at an ashram, how she came to understand that she was God, and how that changed everything. Noticing my father’s interest in the conversation she welcomed him in, asking, “What do you think?” My father smiled, softening the blow, winsomely bursting the bubble and asked, stifling a laugh, “You don’t REALLY think you’re the almighty do you?” She laughed too, confessing, “No, no I don’t.” He had no need to present a compelling apologetic with footnotes and nuance that she could ignore. He simply had to acknowledge what everyone already knew, that she was just another creature.
Be careful. Don’t believe the lie that they believe the lie. And don’t give it credibility by treating it as credible.