No Fruitless Words: reframing the pursuit of knowledge around the gospel

By Kristen LaValley

Social media has recently been overtaken by stories of government conspiracy, complicated webs of pedophilia and human trafficking, and secret groups of Satanists running the world. Overnight, stories that previously only existed in forums and anonymous blogs were now being shared by thousands of people, including those we know, love, and respect.



More and more people are insisting that believers "wake up" to the evil around us, but is that what believers are called to?



Should the focus of a believer be about obtaining more knowledge?

How does the Gospel compel us to respond to evil?

Are our only options to know more or to ignore it altogether?

Or does Jesus move us in an entirely different direction?



We have to reframe what we "know" around the bigger story : The Story of God and His People. And that story isn't just a story about good beating evil, it's a story of redemption and hope.

If what you've been exposed to through friend or through social media, has made you fearful, panicked, and restless, this book will fill you with hope, expectation, and joy as you recenter your mind and your heart around the Gospel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716671609

Book preview

Notes

INTRO

I started writing about all of this in the first few weeks of the pandemic. At first it was just scribbled words in a notebook and then it morphed into something a little more complex. I wasn’t trying to prove anything right or wrong. I was just trying to make sense of it. It seemed like overnight my social media feeds were filled with stories of government corruption, hoaxes, pedophilia, human trafficking, and secret satanic organizations. I wasn’t shocked by the theories, because I’d been reading about them for a few years, but I was shocked by who was talking about them.

When I first started reading into conspiracy theories, the information was only available on obscure forums, and Youtube videos with creepy voice overs. It wasn’t something I would have ever shared on social media and definitely wouldn’t have talked about it in front of people. It wasn’t a cool thing to do. It was something your weird cousin talked about at the family reunion, and you pretended to think he was crazy, but then you went home and googled "is the moon real?" But now, things are different and it isn’t just your probably-a-little-off-his-rocker cousin talking. It’s your friends. Your sisters. Your uncles. Your favorite influencers.

It’s a bit jarring, isn’t it, to see someone you know suddenly sharing stories about repulsive, organized crime? You wish you could just say that they’re crazy, but you kind of feel like they’re on to something…

So what do we do with that?

What do we do when we’re faced with stories that terrify us? What responsibility do we have if they’re true? How do we, as followers of Jesus, respond to the information that we can access so easily? Do we keep consuming in hopes we find the answers? Do we seek more and more knowledge so that we can know, be prepared, and protect our families? Or do we ignore it altogether and move on? Does it have to be one or the other?

I have a really hard time when I can’t figure out the why of something. My brain just isn’t wired to be comfortable in ambiguity. I’m always searching for patterns, connecting dots, and seeing the implications of every little thing. It’s addicting. If someone offers the tiniest thread, I will unravel it until it’s 3:30 in the morning and all I’m left with is the thread I started with, a mess of unraveled mysteries, and zero answers.

Every rabbit hole you jump into opens up into another. Then another. Then another. There’s no end. The threads you pull will just lead you to more questions and mysteries. You can connect dots and make cases for the rest of your life and never be satisfied. It’s a drawn out mystery that you can investigate with no rules, no boundaries, and no self control, for as long as you want.

I don’t recommend that approach. I think there’s an answer for us somewhere in the middle, where our questions and the Gospel meet.

There’s no better news than the Gospel. It’s a message of hope and redemption, but often our pursuit of knowledge chokes that message out. We get so caught up in our fear and curiosity that we forget what a beautiful story we’re in.

We use the knowledge of theories and evil as an