DECEPTION OF SELF

Jessica Hawn, former church secretary who committed immoral acts with Jim Bakker (former host of the PTL Club), and later brought down the PTL empire, said today (9-28-87) that God gave her "real peace" about granting an interview to Playboy magazine and posing for topless pictures. On 9-29-87 the news reports that she still considers herself a Christian, but goes to God "one-on-one," not through any church or organization. Also: she doesn't consider herself a "bimbo." But her mother does.

Some early studies concerned with prejudice show that we're quite capable of reordering our perceptions of the world around us in order to maintain our conviction that we're right. A group of white, middle-class New York City residents were presented with a picture of people on a subway. Two men were in the foreground. One was white, one was black. One wore a business suit, one was clothed in workman's overalls. One was giving his money to the other who was threatening him with a knife. Now as a matter of fact it was the black man who wore the suit, and it was he who was being robbed by the white laborer. But such a picture didn't square with the prejudices of the viewers. To them, white men were executives, black men were blue collar workers. Blacks were the robbers, whites the victims. And so they reported what their mind told them they saw--that a black laborer was assaulting a white businessman. As human beings who desperately desire our lives to be consistent and untroubled, we'll go to great lengths to reject a message that implies we're wrong. 

Em Griffin, The Mindchangers, Tyndale House, 1976, pp. 48-9.

A school teacher lost her life savings in a business scheme that had been elaborately explained by a swindler. When her investment disappeared and her dream was shattered, she went to the Better Business Bureau. "Why on earth didn't you come to us first?" the official asked. "Didn't you know about the Better Business Bureau?" "Oh, yes," said the lady sadly. "I've always known about you. But I didn't come because I was afraid you'd tell me not to do it." The folly of human nature is that even though we know where the answers lie--God's Word--we don't turn there for fear of what it will say. 

Jerry Lambert.