Over the last two weeks, Haitian refugees have been gathering under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. Controversy came when mounted border patrol agents were photographed deterring refugees from crossing the border. With some mistaking split reins for whips, the accusations of mistreatment reached the White House, which promptly banned the use of horses for patrolling the border. Although President Biden promised a “widescale repatriation” of refugees back to Haiti, they are being released on a “very very large scale” into the US.  The USA’s Special Envoy to Haiti resigned in protest over the deportations. But the word games went on, with government officials continuing their trick of referring to illegal border crossings as “irregular migration.”

While Mad Christians are awake to the fog of confusion that the white noise of our culture creates, this story illustrates how you can never stop discerning. The internet means that images often travel faster than the context needed to make sense of them. While the prudent thing to do would be to reserve judgement until more facts come to light, many in media and politics seem compelled to make pronouncements, as soon as the outrage kicks in. The resulting need for “spin,” cover ups, and diversionary wagging of the dog is what makes our media environment so tricky to navigate.

The are some advantages to our situation— could anyone mistake a world leader for an average Joe in this age of images? With the ubiquity of leaked documents (even some leaked documents about people who leak documents) could anyone cover up the fact that a president was wheelchair bound? Yet, there is still plenty of room for the sheer volume of inputs, both amount and amplitude, to mess with your head. So take Rev Fisk’s advice, make sure your main input is the trustworthy Word of God, the one place you can believe everything that you read. Praise God!