You’re All Alone: The Biggest Lie in the History of Christianity
The Parable of Meghan, Harry, and the families: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?
History’s first family started society itself. From the beginning, we asked whether “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
Maybe that’s why we care about stories about Meghan and Harry vs. the Royal Family? Such stories remind us of our eternal generational rivalries between families and their children.
These generational rivalries also explain the biggest lie in the history of Christianity (and all relationships): The notion that you are all alone, isolated and at odds, split apart from the rest of your family, society — or maybe God Himself?
The biggest lie keeps repeating itself
The divider constantly distorts the truth — tied to the main goal of keeping us divided, turning family and friends into rivals or enemies.
“You could fill whole libraries with the lies that have been told about Christians and Christianity,” Matthew Kelly writes in The Biggest Lie in the History of Christianity: How Modern Culture Is Robbing Billions of People of Happiness. “The world lies about this subject more than anything else… The abuse of something good does not diminish the good itself.”
The biggest of all those lies, Kelly argues, is the lie claiming you can never be holy, a saint, or free of sin because you aren’t like those other people. The lie has one main goal: to butter you up (or smash you down) into thinking you shouldn’t like those other people in your family, church, culture, or society.
The lie gets embellished, of course, with suggestions like “You’re better off without them. Run from them — or denounce or destroy them. Look how evil, racist, stupid, sick, mean, crazy, destructive, or dangerous they are — and remember, they can’t stand you either.”
The names and words change, but the overall goal always remains the same: To divide you from the other.
A story as old as time — and as new as your world
From the beginning, we are taught we have a Father and Creator with a special plan for us, but along comes the divider telling us, “you can’t trust your father, your family — or some other enemy. You’re on your own.”
A secular approach is to call this the battle of your conscience: pro and con, right or wrong. If you don’t believe in a higher power, your new “god” becomes the person or thing ranking No.1 on your priority list while the people you resent or fear most become enemies.
The Christian translation: the competing voices you hear are your guardian angel and your demons, one whispering on each shoulder. Or remember it this way: the devil always tries to divide us while Christ always shows us how to unite.
We see this story repeat itself in the Bible: the divider makes our first parents question the Word of the Father. The division repeats itself with Cain and Abel and ever after.
We see this story carry on throughout the news: The Royal Family, led by the Queen who also oversees the Anglican Church, builds up its own traditions over centuries.
For example, King George V established the tradition that your son doesn’t become a prince until his grandparent is the king or queen (but apparently, no one explained this to Meghan, who was resentful that her son Archie couldn’t be a prince until Archie’s grandfather Charles becomes king).
Prince Harry (the younger brother and now more distant from the throne as his older brother William continues to have more children/heirs) marries Meghan, who questions and rejects Harry’s family — and her own father.
So the children leave the family, going their own way, and the division continues. Even a prince and duchess with a vast fortune don’t necessarily live “happily ever after,” we see.
The division is societal — but it’s also incredibly personal
“A society that gets marriage wrong will not remain free for long: the family is the training ground for the virtues that make free societies possible,” Scott Hahn writes in The First Society. “A disintegrating culture of marriage will lead to a disintegrating society. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Just look around.”
If Christians would live their marriages sacramentally, Hahn says, in as little as “one generation, we would witness a transformation of society and have a Christian culture.”
But everywhere, people feel isolated and all alone, split apart, islands being cut away from the mainland.
Our young friend Beth saw her baby brother die when they were small children. The pain and trauma remain. She tried to become a nun and was rejected, making her feel even more isolated and lost, unsure of herself. Three years later, she is finally closer to being ready to try again.
But she keeps hearing the same old lie: “Maybe nobody likes me. I don’t fit in anywhere.”
Pope Emeritus Benedict warned of “a peculiar Western self-hatred that is nothing short of pathological. It is commendable that the West is trying to be more open, to be more understanding of the values of outsiders, but it has lost all capacity for self-love. All that it sees in its own history is the despicable and the destructive; it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure.”
Why would the fruit resent the tree it sprang from?
The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree, so why would the fruit resent the tree it came from? We can even learn this lesson from our own pop culture. The biggest lie surrounds us.
Consider the film Rocky Balboa, from 2006, the sixth film in the Rocky series. The famous boxer is now an aging legend living a simple life, while his son Rocky Jr. is highly educated and highly resentful.
The elder Rocky is not educated, but he knows his identity and is a faithful man. He teaches his son, Rocky Jr. The Way with some age-old advice about relationships, family, and life itself:
“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
“You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”
Why is the divider working so consistently to keep us divided? Encouraging resentment between the fruit and the tree it sprang from?
Because when we isolate ourselves, we can feel alone, worrying God isn’t with us. But when we come together, we are reminded, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20, RSVCE).
