For the past decade, we’ve been living in what many scholars and cultural observers call the “post-truth” age.
The Oxford Dictionary—which named “post-truth” its word of the year in 2016—defines this term as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
While skepticism toward truth claims is nothing new, the past two decades have been distinguished by several factors that amplify the post-truth phenomenon. Social media’s rise has created echo chambers where misinformation can spread rapidly and unchecked. The decline in the influence of traditional information gatekeepers—such as established media outlets, universities, and religious institutions—has led to a fragmentation of shared narratives. And the increasing polarization of society has made many people more likely to accept information that confirms their existing beliefs, regardless of its factual basis.
This post-truth age poses profound challenges for Jesus followers. How does the church proclaim the gospel in a world where all truth claims are viewed with suspicion? How do we engage in meaningful dialogue when emotional resonance often trumps logical argument? And perhaps most critically, how do we maintain the integrity of our witness when the very concept of objective truth is under assault?
Before we can answer such questions about the post-truth world, we should first answer the question Pontius Pilate asked Jesus: “What is truth?” (John 18:38).
The best definition of truth, and one presupposed by Scripture, is that which corresponds to God’s reality. As philosopher J. P. Moreland explains, according to the correspondence theory of truth, “truth is a matter of a proposition (belief, thought, statement, representation) corresponding to reality.” Christians have a special relationship to truth since, as Scripture tells us, the ultimate reality—the most really real thing of all—is Jesus (John 14:6).
The opposite of truth is untruth or lies. When we say something is a lie, we mean it doesn’t correspond to reality. And if it doesn’t align with reality, it doesn’t align with the ultimate reality—Jesus. If it doesn’t correspond to reality, it’s in opposition to Jesus.
A lie is making an untrue statement or acting in such a way as to leave a false or misleading impression, especially with the intent to deceive someone who is deserving of the truth (and there are few situations where hearers are not deserving of truth (e.g., Josh 2:4)). A lie is in opposition to the truth, and thus in opposition to Jesus. Post-truth is the phenomenon where public opinion is shaped more by unreality than reality, by lies rather than objective truth.
Post-truth is the phenomenon where public opinion is shaped more by unreality than reality, by lies rather than objective truth.
John Mark Comer notes that “the problem [today] is less that we tell lies and more that we live them; we let false narratives about reality into our bodies, and they wreak havoc in our souls.” In this post-truth world, we’re in the latest stage of what Comer calls the “war on lies.”
We’re both in a war on lies and with the one who started the war—the Devil. In John 8:44, Jesus says about the Devil, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
The Devil has many things he can do, many ways he can harm humans, such as demonic possession and affliction. But his most powerful and effective tools are often more subtle. In 1836, John Wilkinson wrote, “One of the artifices of Satan is to induce men to believe that he does not exist.” A corollary for our age is that a primary artifice of the Devil is to induce men to act as if objective truth doesn’t exist.
The most effective means the Devil has of introducing evil into this world is to tell lies and encourage humans to spread them. That’s why there’s a war between truth and lies—and why everyone must choose a side. We either choose to side with reality and Jesus or we choose to side with Satan and lies.
If you side with Satan, you’ll be enslaved by lies. If you side with Jesus, then as John 8:32 tells us, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Those are our only two options.
To be effective in this war on lies, we must know what we’re fighting against, have a strategy for engagement, and develop tactics to implement our strategy.
There are numerous battle lines within this war, but four are primary.
As a manifestation of the post-truth phenomenon, this occurs when people prioritize their feelings, intuitions, or emotional responses over objective facts or empirical evidence. At its core, emotional untruth reflects the human tendency to trust our gut feelings and personal experiences more than abstract data or expert opinions. This can be particularly powerful when the emotional response is tied to deeply held beliefs, personal identities, or traumatic experiences.
Emotional responses aren’t inherently negative or irrational, as they can often serve as valuable intuitive guides, especially in individual social situations. However, problems arise when we allow our emotions to consistently override factual information, leading to decisions or beliefs disconnected from objective reality.
A primary artifice of the Devil is to induce men to act as if objective truth doesn’t exist.
This refers to the phenomenon where people accept or believe something because it fits into a compelling storyline or explanation, regardless of its factual accuracy. This type of post-truth thinking capitalizes on the human tendency to make sense of the world through stories. We are, by nature, storytelling creatures, and we often find it easier to understand and remember information when it’s presented in a narrative format.
Narrative untruth’s power lies in its ability to provide a sense of coherence and meaning to complex or chaotic events, to offer simple explanations for difficult problems, and to reinforce existing beliefs or worldviews.
This can be a particularly seductive type of lie because it often contains elements of factual truth interwoven with speculation, exaggeration, or outright falsehoods. This mixture can make it challenging to distinguish between fact and fiction, especially when the narrative aligns with one’s preexisting beliefs or desires.
Unsupported conspiracy theories are the most obvious type of narrative untruths. But an even more common form, especially on social media, is the oversimplified or distorted narrative of current events. These narratives take complex social, political, or religious issues and reduce them to simple, emotionally charged stories that often vilify one group while glorifying another.
For example, a complex debate about how to respond to a political issue might be reduced to a meme portraying one political faction as purely evil and the other as entirely virtuous. Or a nuanced social issue might be boiled down to a viral video that presents only one perspective, ignoring important context and alternative, biblically valid viewpoints.
These narratives spread rapidly through likes, shares, and comments, often reaching millions of people before fact-checkers or more balanced perspectives can catch up. The danger lies in their ability to shape public opinion and even influence real-world actions based on incomplete or distorted information.
The philosopher Richard Rorty once claimed that “truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with saying.” He was suggesting truth is a social construct influenced by the norms, beliefs, and power structures of a given time and place. A corollary to this claim is “tribal truth”—that truth becomes what your tribe lets you get away with saying.
An individual’s “tribe” is the “in-group,” the group a person belongs to and feels a strong sense of identification with. In-group members tend to have positive views of each other, treat each other preferentially, and share a similar group mentality. The “out-group” is a group a person doesn’t belong to or identify with, and the in-group tends to have more negative views of its members.
The vitriol the in-group has for the out-group is often increased when the distinctions are all but imperceptible to outsiders. Sigmund Freud called this the narcissism of small differences. It’s the idea that “the more a . . . community shares commonalities, the more likely the people in it are to engage in interpersonal feuds and mutual ridicule because of hypersensitivity to minor differences.”
Tribalism is nothing new, of course, even among Christians. But what does seem to be different is how in-groups—even Christian ones—no longer feel a sense of shame when lying outright about the out-group. No shame though the lies are told in venues that can be observed by thousands of people, both believers and non-Christians.
In-groups—even Christian ones—no longer feel a sense of shame when lying outright about the out-group.
The core premise of tribalistic truth is that whatever lowers the social status or power of the out-group is allowed—as long as your tribe will let you get away with saying it. The last part is essential, for it provides a limiting factor on what types of lies are allowed by a particular in-group.
For instance, tribalism allows you to lie about whether a pastor said his congregation had to take a particular position on a social issue, such as claiming he made embracing a particular view (e.g., Christian Nationalism or wokeism) a matter of orthodoxy. But lying about actual orthodoxy (such as saying he denied the Trinity) would be out of bounds. The lie has to be something in-group members think a person in the out-group would believe.
Indeed, most disputes aren’t about what’s said but what’s inferred. The in-group has an uncanny ability to discern the motives and internal mental workings of the out-group.
Another critical battlefront in the war on lies is what we might call “institutional untruth.” This refers to the phenomenon where individuals or groups embrace, perpetuate, or defend falsehoods in order to protect the reputation, power, or interests of institutions they value or belong to. This form of untruth is particularly insidious because it often masquerades as loyalty, duty, or even righteousness.
Institutional untruth can manifest in cover-ups (concerted efforts to hide the truth, often justified as “protecting the greater good” of the institution’s mission), scapegoating (blaming individuals or external factors to preserve the institution’s image), rewriting history (past events are reinterpreted or sanitized to align with a new and misleading narrative), and intimidation (those who speak out against institutional lies face retaliation or ostracism, creating a culture of silence).
This type of untruth can be found in every area of society—in government agencies, corporations, schools, nonprofits, and sadly, even within churches and ministries. The Catholic Church’s handling of sexual abuse cases, for instance, provides a sobering example of how institutional untruth can lead to profound harm and erosion of trust in all institutions.
For Christians, institutional untruth presents a particular challenge since much of our work is carried out through institutions, and our mission depends heavily on our reputations. The temptation to overlook or justify untruths for the sake of these institutions can too easily be justified as an attempt to protect God’s work.
How should we wage battle in the war on lies? As in everything, we must follow Jesus’s lead. First John 3:8 tells us, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” Jesus came to destroy the work of the Devil, and the work of the Devil is spreading lies. Our part in this war is similar: we must labor to destroy the Devil’s work by resisting lies. That’s why our motto should be “Live not by lies.”
That phrase originated from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Russian writer and Christian who opposed the evils of the Soviet Union. On the day he was arrested by Soviet authorities in 1974, he released an essay titled “Live Not by Lies” in which he tried to rally his fellow citizens to free themselves from Soviet violence and oppression. In that essay he says,
[Oppression] demands of us only a submission to lies, a daily participation in deceit—and this suffices as our fealty.
And therein we find, neglected by us, the simplest, the most accessible key to our liberation: a personal nonparticipation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me! . . . For when people renounce lies, lies simply cease to exist. Like parasites, they can only survive when attached to a person. [emphasis in original]
Later in the essay, Solzhenitsyn includes a line that should be our primary strategy in the war on lies: “Never knowingly support lies!”
To never knowingly support lies is one of the most important elements of spiritual warfare. The Devil’s primary means of attack is spreading lies. Therefore, a most effective means of opposing him is to take up the practice recommended by Solzhenitsyn: Never knowingly support lies.
To implement this strategy, we should adopt three tactics.
Underlying almost every debate on political and social issues in our country today is the question of whether there’s any fundamental reality that all people must acknowledge or whether reality itself is malleable and based on personal preferences.
Consider, for example, the issue of gender identity. Those who accept the idea that we can ignore biological sex for the mental construct of “gender identity” are endorsing what’s called “metaphysical subjectivism.” This is the idea that “our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience.” Supporters of transgenderism aren’t only disagreeing with those of us who believe reality is created by God; they’re attempting to make this the standard all other people must use. They’re trying to make their standard of unreality the standard for determining norms and ethics. Christians cannot go along with this.
As a Christian, you must stand in defense of objective reality and reject the claim that reality can be subjective.
In our age of social media and rapid information sharing, it’s easy to inadvertently spread misinformation. Yet as Christ’s ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20), we have a responsibility to be truth-tellers. This means
verifying information before sharing it, especially if it seems sensational or aligns too perfectly with our preexisting beliefs;
being willing to admit when we’ve shared inaccurate information and correcting it;
encouraging critical thinking and fact-checking within our circles of influence; and
resisting the temptation to share potentially false information just because it supports our political views.
There’s no exemption for emotional untruth. As Christians, we must engage in disagreements with patience, kindness, and gentleness (Gal. 5:22–23). We can recognize the real emotional experiences that drive the beliefs of those we disagree with. We can also admit that simply dismissing someone’s fears or concerns because they don’t align with statistics is unlikely to be persuasive and may even be perceived as callous.
Yet what we cannot do is allow emotional responses to override or replace objective truth and reality. As Christ’s followers, we’re called to a higher standard—one that balances compassion with a commitment to truth. We cannot validate falsehoods simply because they stem from genuine emotions. Nor can we allow emotional appeals to be a substitute for sound reasoning and evidence in argument and belief.
To never knowingly support lies is one of the most important elements of spiritual warfare.
There’s no exemption for narrative untruth. Behind almost every false narrative is the claim that a group of people is engaged in a conspiracy to prevent us from knowing what’s true. In other words, the narrative untruth is proposing to be a counter to other lies.
We often make excuses for why such false accusations are tolerable. Often the people who believe the false narrative are less powerful than the group they are accusing. But the ninth commandment prohibits us from bearing false witness against our neighbor, even if the “enemy” is faceless and powerful (Ex. 20:16).
There’s no exemption from tribalistic untruths. The most common form of this type of untruth holds that the biblical standard of behavior is unrealistic or unworkable in the secular realm of politics. But the Bible presents no ethical loopholes or moral exemptions for believers who enter the public square to engage in politics, either in the political arena or on social media. God’s Word also doesn’t contain a clause stating that God allows lying when running for secular positions of power.
The call to integrity, honesty, and ethical behavior remains steadfast, regardless of our role in society or government. We must always remember that God hates it when politicians lie, and we should too. The challenge for Christian politicians, then, isn’t to find exemptions from these standards but to exemplify them in the complex and often morally ambiguous world of politics.
There’s no exemption for institutional untruth. As Christians, we must recognize the temptation to overlook or justify falsehoods for the sake of institutions we value or belong to. We can acknowledge the complex loyalties and pressures that exist within organizations, whether they’re churches, ministries, or faith-based entities. We can also understand the fear that exposing wrongdoing might harm an institution’s mission or reputation.
Yet what we cannot do is prioritize institutional preservation over our commitment to truth and integrity. As followers of Christ, we’re called to a higher standard—one that values transparency and accountability over institutional self-protection. We cannot engage in cover-ups or selective reporting simply because it serves our organization’s interests. Nor can we allow institutional loyalty to become a form of idolatry that supersedes our allegiance to God and his truth. We must always remember that God values integrity over institutional reputation.
The consistent message throughout Scripture is that God’s ethical standards apply to all believers in all circumstances. We’re called to be salt and light (Matt. 5:13–16) in the public square, demonstrating we can engage with those who have different beliefs while maintaining an unwavering commitment to Christian ethics.
Non-Christians should never be able to say Christians are liars. They should never be able to say we’re deceptive people who break oaths. This should be a basic standard for all Christians, for if we’re liars, we’re traitors.
When we lie, we’re siding with Satan over Jesus. But when we choose truth over falsehood, we align ourselves with Christ and resist the father of lies. When we refuse to participate in deception, we chip away at the strongholds of untruth that plague our society. When we take up Solzhenitsyn’s challenge to “live not by lies,” our lives reflect the reality of Christ’s love and the power of his truth.
In following the way of Jesus, we preserve our witness and offer hope to a world drowning in deception. For in Christ, we find not just the truth that sets us free but the strength to stand firm in that truth, come what may.
As bearers of light in this post-truth age, may we always remember our ultimate allegiance isn’t to tribe, narrative, emotion, or any institution but to Truth himself. We should therefore be willing to fight the wars on lies, willing to lose (in the short term) on the side of Jesus rather than win using Satan’s tactics.
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