Massaging the Truth.

There is a story being bandied around christian evangelical circles about a train drawbridge operator who takes his son to work. The story goes that he puts the bridge up to show his son the machinery, the son climbs into it, train comes along, Father has to decide to lower the drawbridge thereby killing his son or leave it up killing the people on the oncoming train. He chooses the former. It is clearly an allegory of the sacrifice by God the Father of his son Jesus in order to save many. There is a movie called Most (Czech for Bridge), although told in a secular sense, and you can read the full story and a discussion on it here.

I see several problems with telling the story:

• Firstly, it is told as if it were true, which it is not, making the emotional tug at the heart that much stronger. In any other context this is pure manipulation. Why are Christians prone to being manipulative and/or gullible?
  
• Secondly, what are we supposed to take from the story? That Jesus made a sacrifice by accident? That God the Father is stupid or negligent? If an atonement allegory is the point it gets buried under the other stuff.
• Some Christians think it is OK to exaggerate, even fabricate, stories in order to bring out a 'higher' truth. Why? The story of Jesus should be enough. On the blog referred to, one guy says his son came to faith as an 8 year old on hearing the story so it doesn't matter if the story is true or not. Mmm.

Massaging the Truth will set you free?