Two of the many events that have roiled social and news media for the last few days seem, on the surface, about as different as one can imagine. In one case, in Louisville, KY, two white police officers, in the process of executing a search warrant, tragically killed a black woman after her boyfriend shot at the cops. In the second, this one in Moscow, ID, which is 2,100 miles northwest of Louisville, white cops cited white protestors for refusing to keep social distance or for refusing to wear a mask, for resisting arrest, and, in one case, arrested a political candidate for refusing to show identification to an officer. In Moscow no one was killed and one political campaign has received invaluable national publicity free of charge. What do they have in common?

Facts Matter

To a remarkable degree, the coverage of both of these events has been driven by narratives more than facts. In the Louisville case, the initial narrative spun by activists and repeated endlessly in the news and social media (is there any substantive difference any longer?) is that the police came to the wrong house, that the served a “no-knock warrant,” and that they killed an innocent woman in her bed. There were other exaggerations and lies told about this tragedy that do not need to be repeated in this space. All of those claims we now know to have been false. The Louisville Courier published an fact check article debunking 8 myths surrounding the death of Breonna Taylor.

Those claims were made and repeated in the service of a narrative, a story about the nature of things that may or may not be true. The prejudice of those, e.g., Lebron James, who would have us think that white cops are actively “hunting” (that is the word he used) black men was confirmed by this narrative, which turns out to have been as false as the initial story (“Hands up! Don’t shoot”) surrounding the death of Michael Brown. That narrative was debunked by the report produced by the Depart of Justice under President Obama.

Facts matter. Cornelius Van Til was right. There is no such thing as a brute fact, i.e., an uninterpreted bit of reality but this is not to say that there are no facts. As we have descended into late-modern subjectivism, we have slid farther down the slope toward social and cultural chaos. Young people have been taught for most of four decades that there is no such thing as objective reality, that facts are arbitrary political constructs to be deconstructed and replaced with a revolutionary social order. We are seeing the consequences of this theory being played out in the streets of the United States night after night.

Outrage Kills

Members of the Kirk, Christ Church, in Moscow, ID are also pushing a narrative about the the arrest of a few people the other day. Their narrative is that they merely gathered to sing Psalms and were accosted by jack-booted thugs dressed in police uniforms, unjustly arrested, and taken to jail. This narrative has about as much going for it as the Michael Brown and Breonna Taylor narratives.

As with those cases, pundits and others on social media and the news media have picked up the Kirk narrative and spread it widely. As I argued yesterday, it should clear to anyone with even a modicum of experience with news and politics that this was a publicity stunt from beginning. Had the Kirkers merely wanted to sing psalms they could have done so without any trouble from the local constabulary. They chose, however, to protest the local mask and social distance regulations by violating them. This is known as civil disobedience. As I have said about the MacArthur case (Grace Community Church) and about the Moscow, ID case, civil disobedience has a long and honored history in America. It is one of the ways that Americans have to call attention to unjust laws and to seek to change them. The American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s modeled how to practice civil disobedience peacefully and to good effect.

This is why the Kirker narrative should not be swallowed by critical thinkers. They were not merely singing Psalms. They were singing Psalms as they were protesting a regulation with which they disagree. The organizer, Gabriel Rench, wanted a confrontation and indeed provoked one by refusing to give his identification to the police when they asked. The “Sovereign Citizens” are wrong. In America, when the police ask for your identification you must produce it. Further, some of the Kirkers are charged with resisting arrest. I have been singing Psalms for 40 years and never once has it required me to resist arrest. There is nothing about Pslam singing that requires one to be closer than 6 feet to one’s neighbor. It is even possible to sing Psalms with a mask on. I have done it now dozens of times over the last 6 months.

As Moscowid.net has noted, Tucker Carlson (not to mention Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck, et al.) have seized on this story, with video conveniently provided to them by Rench’s supporters, and repeated the Kirker narrative. On social media Kurt Schlichter and Ian Miles Cheong both repeated the Kicker narrative. Apparently none of these media personalities took the time to read the local newspaper account of what happened and none of them seem aware of the background to the story. Omitting the local coverage in favor a narrative also unifies these episodes. The Louisville Courier’s fact check of the Breonna Taylor story has been largely ignored as has been the DOJ report on Michael Brown. People are still repeating the “hands up, don’t shoot” lie as if it were truth. The Moscow-Pullman Daily News story about Rench’s arrest was also ignored.

To pull back the curtain a bit, television news and talk shows do not have large research staffs any more and they do not have time to investigate stories carefully and thoroughly. What they must do is fill about 40 minutes of air-time every day. Air-time is a ravenous monster that must be fed and ratings must be sustained. Outrage gets clicks and ratings. Narratives feed the outrage machine. So, when someone feeds a narrative to a producer (how does Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham find out about a story in Moscow, ID? The connections might surprise you) the producer has little incentive or time to check out the story in detail, especially when it fits a narrative. In this case, the narrative is that power-hungry politicians, emboldened by the CDC and their newfound authority under public health laws, are trampling the constitutional rights of ordinary Americans. That narrative may be true and more sustainable regarding blue states like California, New York, New Jersey etc but, on the face of it, should have been implausible when applied to Moscow, ID. Indeed, Tucker noted the incongruity and complained that people are moving to Idaho (from California) to get away from this very sort of tyranny. That is one explanation but it is not correct. The incongruity of “cops arresting worshipers” (to paraphrase several clickbait headlines) should have caused Carlson and his staff to reconsider: Perhaps that is not what happened?

There are good reasons why both social and news media types should be cautious about narratives. In the Pacific Northwest there is a history of serious and even deadly tension between law enforcement and survivalist types. Many no longer remember the Ruby Ridge episode (1992), but the memory of that 11-day siege lives in the minds and memories of those who live in the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest. The standoff between a landowner and authorities at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, in Oregon, led to the death of one person. In the Pacific Northwest and the Mountain West, Ruby Ridge and Malheur are symbols, in some circles, of an imperious government trampling the rights of the little people. There are those who are predisposed to believe the “they’re out to get us” narrative. Conspiracy theories abound in this country for a reason. Thus, stories of police “arresting worshipers” need to be told very carefully lest the situation gain momentum and spin out of control. Does anyone remember Waco? In 2016, in the wake of the (2014) shooting of Michael Brown and the subsequent riots in Ferguson, MO, a crazed shooter, fed by false narratives about the killing of Brown and Philando Castillo (2016), shot 12 police officers and murdered 5.

Garrett Cabeza, writing for the Moscow, ID paper, reports that there is another “flash psalm sing” set for later today in Moscow. There will certainly be news crews there to film the conflict. The candidate is getting all the publicity for which he bargained and perhaps more. The city is doing their part. “City workers painted colorful rings 6 feet apart on the parking lot pavement to aid attendees in social distancing.” If the Kirkers really only want to sing Psalms, they are being invited to do so “decently and in good order” (1 Cor 14:40) if they will but the truth, that a candidate for office cleverly manipulated social and news/talk media is less interesting than the “jack-booted thugs” narrative circulating presently.

Resources

• How To Subscribe To Heidelmedia
• Kirk Pulls Publicity Stunt. Social Media Falls For It: No Religious Liberties Were Harmed During The Filming Of This Commercial
• Dear Kirkers, Romans 13, 1 Peter 2, and 1 Peter 4 Are Still God’s Word
• A Useful Distinction Regarding Church And State In Our Covid-19 Controversy
• Church Services, Covid-19, Civil Liberties, And The Culture War
• Heidelcast 151: Christ, Culture, And Covid-19
• Conspiracy Theories Are Bunk