How to Spot a LIAR

When I was in high school the Internet crept out of university labs and gamer basements and into the mainstream. The 90s were quickly heralded as the information age, and there was talk of a coming revolution.

Decades earlier people made similar claims when television was marketed to ordinary people. Professors had hopes that with television the ordinary person could have access to the operas and ballets of high culture. There could be high-brow intellectual discussions that would better-inform average citizens. But instead the word “trash” became associated with television.

The Internet didn’t fare any better than television before it. Plenty of information came as was promised—more information than anyone could ever hope to grapple with. Like trying to drink out of a firehose, the information superhighway spewed all over our lives. And instead of trying to turn it off, we just got swept up in its current.

Having a LIAR

I titled this piece how to spot a LIAR because of the acronym: Low Information-Action Ratio. Neil Postman, whose most famous book is entitled Amusing Ourselves to Death, used LIAR to describe what happened to Americans after the onset of television. The ratio of information to action is the description of how much information we receive before we act on it. As we got pummeled with information, we acted less and less on what we received. Postman died in 2003, and since then the ratio he described has only gotten worse.

Not every situation has a LIAR today. For example, if you are driving and you hear sirens and look into your rear-view mirror to see an ambulance with flashing lights that’s all the information you would need to act by pulling over and letting them pass. That is a 1:1 ratio of information to action.

But since the advent of mass media, especially now that we have phones with notifications binging every few seconds of our waking hours, we have so much information we have no clue how to act on it. We freeze.

And it is precisely because of our ever-increasing inaction that the people who peddle information distort it, so everything sounds dangerous, dire, or life-threatening in hopes that it will convince us to act. Like Jerry Seinfeld joking about only being able to find “extra strength medicine” and no longer anyone selling just plain “strength medicine,” our information clamors for our attention with words such as best, worst, unprecedented, dire, life-changing, and so on.

Does it work? Well, it might garner clicking a video or sharing some article on social media. But do we actually do something about it? Rarely. Often we cannot. Having more information does not mean having the wisdom to know how to respond or the realm of influence to make a difference, so we might momentarily feel bad before moving on to the next piece of information.

By giving away so much of our energy, passion, and attention to heaps of information that we often cannot act upon, we leave little margin in our lives to love and serve those God has placed us near. Before long we might even tune out God’s voice amid all the noise.

Becoming Gospel Fluent

After spending over a year in a new culture and learning a new language, I have noticed how much less information I receive here every day. I listen to the radio and catch some of what is said. I overhear conversations, but often cannot pick out the topic at hand. When I am trying to concentrate on someone speaking to me, I find that background noise is so overwhelming in my second language it often blends together with the person speaking to me. I then have to ask them to repeat themselves. Or, even worse, I answer a question they did not ask, often in embarrassing fashion.

One time I was at a prayer meeting where I and one other person were the only English speakers present. I am not yet at the point where I can pray easily in Portuguese, so I prayed in English and so did the other person. The room was packed full of people praying out loud in Portuguese, and I had trouble hearing the people immediately next to me. But when the only other English-speaker in the room prayed in English, I heard him just fine through the noise without even trying. Since that day I have wondered if I can still pickup God’s voice through the noise of the world, or have I let it get drowned out in a sea of notifications?

God is always speaking. It is part of who he is. John opens his Gospel by saying, “In the beginning was the Word.” The Book of Hebrews begins with:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

Have I let in so much other information that God’s life-sustaining speech has fell under all the noise? Although our technology has made things worse, this is not a new problem. The author of Hebrews continues by building on all the information the Holy Spirit inspires him to give us about the realities of the gospel in order to convince us, the audience, to act on it, namely to continue holding onto our Christian faith despite its suffering, hardships, trials, and the ever-present temptation to give it up in order to make our lives easier.

God does not speak to us through his prophets, Scriptures, and Son to further increase our LIAR because the gospel is not just more information, it is astoudingly good news: Good news worthy of acting upon; Good news worthy of sharing. Good news changes everything because we usually act on it immediately. If I receive an unexpected check in the mail I rush to deposit it in the bank, instead of tossing it in my junkmail pile to collect dust along with advertisements and offers I will never care about.

Ah, but even with the gospel we can easily succumb to being LIAR people, letting its vital good news get lost amid all the noise in our lives to the point that we refuse to act on it and we no longer even hear it. Instead, we give our allegiances to Caesar. We seek strongmen who will fight our battles for us with the world’s weapons. We fear what the world tells us to fear, hate what the world tells us to hate, and let sin shrink us to caring only about ourselves. We find constant outrage in the tide of information blasted our way and pin our hopes, or despair, in that which is fleeting.

Or.

We could attune ourselves better to the gospel. I am no financial expert, but I often tell myself that when my finances are not in order I must either find a way to increase revenue and/or limit expenses. Oftentimes I have to do both. If you want to go from having a LIAR to a HIAR, that is a High Information-Action Ratio, then you must find a way to limit the firehose of information flooding your way and isolate what God is already saying. And then you can act on his good news.

I know, I know. This will likely just be more information that after you scroll through it you will turn to the next thing, but it does not have to be. What would it look like to lessen your knowledge of the vanity fair of this world while increasing your wisdom? What would it look like to act on the news that God’s grace has forgiven your sins, that he has adopted you into his family, that he has given you an inheritance in his kingdom, and that he has commissioned you to spread this vital news with your neighbors?

I cannot answer those questions for you, but I do know that you will likely continue to have a LIAR unless you give yourself time and space to pray, to read the Holy Scriptures, and join a church family to navigate everything together with. Thanks be to God that he has already given us all those things and more.

Now we just have to act on them!