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An Issue of Truth |
Mitchell Stevens
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James Frey looked like a kid called in to the principal’s office on The Oprah Winfrey Show last week. Oprah, whose identity is the brand name of a multimedia empire, had put her extremely lucrative stamp of approval on Frey’s gritty nonfiction memoir, A Million Little Pieces, sending it shooting to the top of American bestseller lists. And that memoir turned out to be a pack of dirty, dirty lies. Frey’s book tells the story of the author’s recovery from alcohol and drug abuse with all the eloquence of a Monday night wrestler. The book is soiled with sophomoric profanity and describes in graphic detail the depths that substance abuse supposedly drove him to. It has been a runaway success. Then came the story from the sleuths at The Smoking Gun, a website made famous for scouring public records for dirt on celebrities. Using “police reports, court records, and interviews with law enforcement personnel,” the site showed that Frey “wholly fabricated or wildly embellished details of his purported criminal career, jail terms, and status as an outlaw ‘wanted in three states.’ ” The site concludes, “Frey appears to have fictionalized his past to propel and sweeten the book’s already melodramatic narrative and help convince readers of his malevolence.”1 When the story initially broke, Frey, his publisher, and even Oprah herself supported the book for the merits of its message, regardless of its being almost completely fabricated. Frey insisted, “The emotional truth is there.”2 His publisher said “The power of the overall reading experience is such that the book remains a deeply inspiring and redemptive story for millions of readers.” And Oprah herself professed, “The underlying message of redemption in James Frey’s memoir still resonates with me and I know that it resonates with other people who have read the book.”3 However, when the public backlash to the news began to threaten the integrity of her brand name, Oprah called the man whose fame she’d built back to the couch, demanding an apology. Which she got … sort of. The waffling was painful to watch. The man was incapable of giving a straight answer. When asked if The Smoking Gun’s report was true or false, Frey stammered, “I think most of what they wrote is pretty accurate, absolutely.”4 The author couldn’t face the music with dignity, but Oprah sure did. With tears in her eyes, she faced the camera and said, “To everyone who has challenged me on this issue of truth, you are absolutely right.” What is most troubling about this entire scandal (besides the issue of how such profane drivel can be any kind of bestseller) is what it says about many people’s outlook on truth. Truth is secondary to emotional impact. If something feels right, well then, if it’s not true, then it ought to be. So the man made up a bunch of stories in order to make a point—what’s the problem? The problem is in how the material was presented. Frey admits he initially tried to sell his manuscript to publishers as a novel—unable to make a deal, he made the rounds again, presenting it as a nonfiction memoir. Any author who purposefully presents a fiction work as nonfiction destroys his credibility. In her re-examination, Oprah was absolutely right. It’s an issue of truth. The same is true of any written work—including the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, its claims are fantastic. The relevance and, more importantly, the truth of most of its stories are hinged on the supernatural. Its commands, no matter how sensible, do not rest on logic, but on “Thus saith the Lord.” But who can accept these claims in such a time as ours? Many
theologians today refuse to accept many of the miraculous elements in the
Bible as factual. These are moved over to the
fiction section. They say they are myths—stories invented to explain a truth.
Stories like the division of the human population at The problem in all this lies with the authors’ claims.
Peter wrote, “…No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own
interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but
men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God”(2 Peter 1:20-21). Paul claimed
“…We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from
God” (1 Corinthians In a time when more people are skeptical of the Bible’s claims, many believers passively respond to Biblical criticism in a manner similar to Frey & Co. “Well, even if parts of it aren’t true, the book remains a deeply inspiring and redemptive story.” If people are digging deeper, we need to be ready to substantiate the Bible’s claims, not compromise them with equivocation. Unlike James Frey’s book, the Bible is one bestseller that has nothing to lose from a closer examination of the records.
2Jon
Bonne, “Oprah strikes a blow for truthiness,” 3Associated
Press, “Oprah Tells Frey He ‘Betrayed’ Readers,” 4“James
Frey and the A Million Little Pieces Controversy,” 5Naseeb
Shaheen, 6Fritz
Ridenour, Who Says God Created? (Glendale, CA: Gospel Light, 1967). In Bert Thompson, “In Defense of…The Bible’s Inspiration,” 2nd ed., ( |
DIRECT BIBLE QUESTIONS TO: Mitchell Stevens, acts2216@midsouth.rr.com