Brian Williams, Marie Harf and the Virtual World

By Wallace B. Henley, Exclusive Columnist Saturday, February 21, 2015

So what's the big deal about Brian Williams and Marie Harf?

The one apparently has a somewhat virtual past in journalism and the other a virtual solution for the top international crisis of our times.

Wallace Henley is an exclusive CP columnist. | (By CP Cartoonist Rod Anderson)

Brian Williams, former NBC Nightly News anchor, was caught in a "sort of" (a favorite qualifier in the virtual world) alleged misconstruance of fact when he reported that he was under fire while on a helicopter in a war zone. Marf, chief spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, suggested that what young ISIS-ISIL warriors need is a jobs program (akin, perhaps, to the Great Society initiatives that turned out to be virtual solutions to poverty).

Now we have Williams, his own virtual boss, suspending himself from his nightly ride on the clouds. Who knows what virtual punishment will fall down on the head of Ms. Marf? Perhaps she will be forced to step aside for her deputy, Jen Psaki, who has come up with her own virtual realities regarding Ukraine and success of Iraqi forces against ISIL.

But I protest: Why should we come down so hard on the likes of Williams, Marf, and Psaki? The whole Big Media-Big Government thing is populated with the mystical aliens inhabiting a virtual Area 51.

History shows it: Kennedy's virtual Camelot believed a scraggly army with virtual weapons (considering their vintage and unavailability) could vanquish Castro at the Bay of Pigs; in Johnson's virtual world, the Vietnam war could be managed better from the White House than on the battlefield; and of course there was my old boss, Nixon, whose virtual reality was the Oval Office through which seemingly no glint of truth or conviction could pierce. We could go at length about the virtual realities of Carter and the Bushes and Obama, but it would take a book.

So this stir about Williams, Marf, et al.: Why blame the avatars inhabiting the virtual world? Don't many of us play the same game? Isn't the world increasingly a vast PlayStation?

Truly, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, not just Williams, Marf, et. al. infinitum.

In the virtual world what is important is not so much truth as it is narrative. Resumes are full of it as we craftily conflate spectacular failures with virtual successes. Many of us live lives of carefully composed composites, not in segments of real-time.

We have virtual religion in which "plenary" (full) divine inspiration of the Bible gives way to virtual narrative-based theology which we can rewrite to suit our fancies, rather like we can alter our avatars so we can be virtually slim or well-abbed. Virtual authors write virtual bestsellers, and virtual pulpiteers contrive virtual stories in which exaggeration is a critical component (a confession: a skill I once practiced with finesse).

Virtual families in which marriage is replaced with cohabitation and hook-ups pretending to be real relationships, and populated with a scattering of children from all the other previous virtual relationships threaten to outpace traditional marriages and homes.

Virtual education gives us virtual majors and virtual degrees that dissolve quickly after graduation when the hunt for a real job starts. "Higher" education now means for many institutions the quest to see how high up in the cloud they can go. They teach virtual values, virtual histories, and virtual philosophies that are no more foundational to a solid worldview and career than, well, a cloud.

The entertainment world is all about the virtual. An Oliver Stone can make history what he wishes and millions will believe him. Virtually gifted producers and directors can even give us a new view of the Bible. CGI (computer-generated-imagery) is now a greater wonder than fine plot, fascinating characterization, and excellent acting. The virtual market demands that no scene exceed three seconds, and be dazzling with explosions and crashes.

Virtual companies create more virtual companies, and virtual spreadsheets showing virtual earnings. We buy virtual commodities with virtual values. All such practices nearly brought down the economy in 2008 until virtual money was pumped into the sputtering machines of commerce, giving them virtual life.

In the virtual world of governance and politics we have virtual enemies (rather than a clear recognition of the real one), virtual borders, virtual red lines, virtual budgets (in which, for example spending for defense is pushed way down the sheet in a time of immense danger) guaranteed virtual assets in the form of wealth not yet produced by our children and grandchildren, virtual foreign policy priorities (at the top, according to administration officials: homosexual rights and global warming).

See what I mean? Why the pile-on of Williams and Marf?

What should be of concern to us all is that a half dozen pulse bombs or a cyber-equivalent could bring the whole virtual world down in a flash – literal or virtual. No wonder the Book of Revelation speaks of the collapse of the global economy in a single hour.

But even some who profess the Bible's faith find the virtual world preferable. Virtual reality, alternative worlds, avatars all make Saint Paul's warning even more biting, when he said the time would come when people would prefer a lie to the truth.

"You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free," said Jesus.

One is not likely to find truth in the virtual world – just the composite narrative that pretends to be real. Which brings us to another admonition from Saint Paul: "Come out from among them and be separate!"

Not a bad idea since the Judgment is not a virtual reality.

Wallace Henley, a former Birmingham News staff writer, was an aide in the Nixon White House, and congressional chief of staff. He is a teaching pastor at Second Baptist Church, Houston, Texas. He is a regular contributor to The Christian Post.