Conspiracy theories, fake news, and midrash: What I learned from freshman Religion

In 2004, I was enrolled in a Religion 101 course with Dr. Murray Haar at Augustana College. It was my first religion course of any kind and the first time I ever read the Bible with even an ounce of criticism. I was surrounded by other freshmen, most of whom were not Religion majors, being exposed to ideas few of us had ever considered. The lion's share of us were Christians; Dr. Haar was Jewish. This is probably one of those classes that a certain category of faith leaders warn you about--the kind that could cause a person to question their faith.

Yet, I discovered something different from Dr. Haar's class. One of the ideas we learned about was the concept of midrash, which is the study and interpretation of ancient Hebrew scripture. That may sound boring, but it was really more like wrestling with the Bible in the same way that Jacob wrestled with God--caring enough to never let go. There is a long and rich history of playing with scripture in the Jewish tradition, and you can read this today in the Talmudic literature if you seek it out. But we weren't just supposed to read midrash, we would be doing midrash of our own! If nothing else, this showed that Dr. Haar had a deep tolerance for bad interpretations, because, let me tell you, I know we did some truly poor midrash.

Enter our first midrash assignment in November of 2004. For some reason, I ended up with the story of the rape of Dinah from Genesis 34. I don't know if I chose that scripture (if so, I was an idiot) or if it was assigned. Either way, I could hardly have ended up with a trickier story to interpret. Not only did I know next-to-nothing about Genesis or the Jewish tradition, I also knew next-to-nothing about sexual violence or, frankly, women. What followed was predictable: I wrote something embarrassingly bad.

I won't explain what I said, except to say that I still have the original and I can barely read it. It was that bad. Mercifully, I did one wise thing that changed everything: I had someone else read it. Naomi was an academic tutor for our dorm, who read papers for dumb freshmen like me, and in this case, she pulled no punches. She graciously pointed out not just the interpretive flaws but, more importantly, the assumptions I was making about women and violence. In response, I did one last wise thing: I listened to her. Dr. Haar never got the original paper; in fact, what he got was a paper lacking any of the original claims. The midrash I turned in was still bad in the way that freshmen papers are bad, but it set me on a course that made all the difference--all because I let somebody in to reveal my glaring blind spots.

I thought about this paper today as I saw another in a long line of conspiracy theories come across my social media feed. I suspect this jarred my memory of the Dinah midrash because I recognized the same kind of assumptions undergirding those "fake news" articles. People who post these claims often say something like, "This is interesting," or "I don't know if this is true but worth thinking about." I can imagine thinking something similar about my Dinah midrash. My interpretation was interesting, but it was also wrong and damaging. It was worth thinking about, but only to understand why it must be rejected.

Unfortunately, I see the opposite reaction from so many who share these ideas. When confronted with the factual inaccuracies in their posts, they too often say something like "Well, who can really know what is true?" I get it: it's embarrassing to be wrong. It's easy to say, "I didn't really believe it. I was just posting it because I found it interesting." But we know the truth: You found it interesting because you wanted to believe it. In fact, maybe you wanted to believe it because it was interesting. I certainly wanted to believe my interpretation of the rape of Dinah, because it demonstrated I was clever enough to see beyond the scripture. That would be interesting! That it was also damaging wasn't really my concern; after all, I wasn't trying to be damaging--I was only after the truth, and who knew what that may be?

One of the bits of wisdom that Dr. Haar often said was that "you need the community to tell you when you're crazy." I believe this is the breakdown we are seeing in this conspiracy-driven landscape. We surround ourselves with like-thinking people who agree with whatever we post, people who coo, "Ooohh, that's interesting!" right back at us. Then, when others are critical, we feel emboldened by the support of those first like-thinkers who reinforced our initial beliefs. Soon it doesn't matter what is true, because the initial idea is still interesting.

I thank God I found Naomi first--that I didn't send the midrash to somebody who would also have found my interpretation interesting. If I had been emboldened to believe whatever I was writing was correct, then I may have been emboldened enough to think that any criticism leveled by Dr. Haar would have been elitist--and what did he know anyway? It's a very slippery slope, which is why I'm so thankful I ended up where I did.

I've never thanked Naomi for this before, though we are still in touch thanks to the wonder of that very same social media that so easily leads us astray. This gives me a good deal of hope, actually--hope that we can be better. I share this today in the hope that you can find the same kind of honest critique. It is a tremendous blessing for somebody to care enough to tell you that you are wrong.