Humor is all sorts of stuff, all sorts of drama. Much of humor has not much of a point besides the joke itself. Anecdotes can be pointed, but just as often as not they’re pointless, just scenarios running of stereotypes and expectations. Absurdism practically requires pointlessness, except when it’s united with sarcasm. Pure punditry, if I may be permitted the double-meaning, need have no point; the statement’s entire purpose may be the delivery of a two-sided word. But one form of humor is built around having and conveying a point: satire. Today, we’ll look at how satire works, the wrong way to do it, and why I have increasingly little love for the Babylon Bee.

Definition

Satire, broadly, is telling the truth by telling a lie. I say one thing, but you understand it’s not literally true. No, what’s true is a spirit of it, a truth it summons up. It’s allusive communication. Sometimes it’s funny; sometimes it’s biting; sometimes it’s both.

Danger

But, because satire carries a message, a truth, a meaning which is received (and, hopefully, given) as an actual truth, satire can be an instrument of deception. Satire is a mode of communication. If the truth is not clearly discernible, the communication becomes unclear. If the truth is not, in fact, true, the communication becomes deception. Worse, it may be false witness.

Now, not all malfunction in satire rests in the truth. The Onion’s pathetic attempt to satire Alex Jones failed not so much by bearing false witness (though it did that) as by being so inaccurate it didn’t function as satire—like mocking Muhammed Ali for being a bad boxer, in attacking an unreality; like satirizing Calvin for being a bad painter, in attacking the utterly irrelevant. Why they thought ‘I drink human blood’ was an effective parody of Alex Jones, famous for his advocacy against that practice, I don’t know, except when I inhabit the mind of the idiot. So that attempt at satire attempted to bear false witness, but its lie was so off-kilter the untruth was barely visible. If satire is a lens (the lie) which gives sight of some text beneath (the truth), then the Onion used the smudgiest, most opaque glass they could find to make their lens.

False Witness

Yet a false witness in the truth of a satire is a much greater danger than an incompetent lie. An incompetent lie defuses the satire, producing a wet thud instead of an explosion. The result is an omission of effect rather than positive damage, as a rule. False witness in the intended truth, however, is the promulgation of false witness—and Scripture speaks on that matter.

The Ten Commandments, strictly speaking, do not forbid men to lie, where ‘lie’ means ‘communicate what is not true.’ The commandment given by God in Exodus 20:16 is, instead, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” While a lack of truth requires justification, such as certainty that it will not be believed or lack of duty to communicate at all, Scripture positively forbids a false communication which will harm another, particularly a brother in Christ (Luke 10:36-37).

Exodus 23:1-3 speaks of bearing false witness in a judicial context, and, let’s be honest, these words apply in any deliberative context, whether a formal tribunal (political, ecclesiastical, familial, social, etc.) or simply somebody forming an opinion. Every man is made in the image of the Judge of all the earth (Gen. 18:25), and we should not pervert their judgements, particularly not when those judgements may have actual effect upon the person we malign or (and remember this) fail to justly condemn. Exodus 23:1-3 forbids us to “spread a false report,” collude in “malicious” witness, bear false witness in a lawsuit, or permit ourselves partiality.

Always, in weighing our course, we should remember how seriously Scripture would have men take these, when men are given jurisdiction, and therefore how seriously God must take them where He reserves or completes jurisdiction (for the state’s jurisdiction is qualitatively limited even where granted). Deuteronomy 19:18-19 states, “If the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely,then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother.” The evil of the lie is tantamount in character and gravity to the evil he sought to do with it.

Remember also that every bearing of false witness has some of the character of Ananias’s lie to the Holy Spirit in Acts 5:1-12.

Joking?

‘Satire’ might seem an escape from this. If it is humor, we can hardly take offense to it, right? “It’s just a joke!” But as we have seen and shall see, humor can bear a message, and if that message is a false witness…. Let’s see what Scripture has to say.

“Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death,” Proverbs 26:18-19 warns us, “is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, ‘I am only joking!’” Now, the verse’s tenor leans more towards the man who deceives and makes out the deception as a joke after-the-fact, but it’s still applicable here. The man who jokes with an intent to deceive is as much a deceiver as he who deceives without the intent to joke; he simply made his defense ahead of time. The defense also bears the same weight in the eyes of God: none at all. A lie via jest is still a lie.

Example #1

Now, I said I’d explain my growing antipathy for the Babylon Bee, and these three examples are where I’ll do so. But example #1 I’ll devote to a bit of satire that I have no trouble with; #2 and #3 will get the problem cases, the false witness being born. I add, with regret, #2 and #3 seem more characteristic of the BB, lately, than example #1.

“Nation Looks Forward To Not Watching Stephen Colbert One Last Time” has the two parts of a satire: the lie, known to all thoughtful readers as an untruth, and the truth, the hit that the lie carries home by implication. The lie here, of course, is that most people actively choose not to watch Colbert, that they do this intentionally. The truth, likewise, is that Colbert really isn’t well-watched, and that just about anything is more worthwhile than watching the man. This rings true for me, the public, and his viewing numbers; certainly the only reasons I’ve paid attention to him are stunts like the dancing vaccines and his help in ruining LotR’s filmography. So the article uses the lie (that people intentionally and specifically avoid Colbert’s show as a cultural practice) to highlight a truth (that he’s not watched and not worth watching).

Example #2

“Thomas Massie Finally Recognized As True Libertarian Now That He Doesn’t Have A Job” is to me a rather baffling bit of satire. The correspondence between its lie and its truth bothers me; it seems to rely on an implied stereotype that libertarians don’t have jobs and don’t shower. I’ll leave aside the pedant’s point (that Massie does still have a job; he’s still the district’s Representative to federal Congress for the next several months). But the truth in this article is mostly a cipher. If you dislike Massie, it’s a funny cheapshot and a mock against libertarians.

What this article highlights for us is that satire often uses some truth to help its point. Typically, these truths are placed in a way that highlights the incongruity of the ‘lie’, implying the intended, underlying truth. So I might say, “The Democratic Party are a bunch of honest, polite, kindly politicians who want nothing but the best for America, as we see by their persistence in murdering America’s babies.” The truth there, the bit about murdering babies, highlights the absurdity or falseness of the lie, my compliment to the Democratic party, making the implication, the truth (that they’re the opposite of what was literally described), clearer.

But this article by the Babylon Bee gets something wrong, because there’s a section here which is clearly meant to be that sort of truth, the truth that sits alongside the lie to highlight the underlying point. That section, which needs to be truth and is going to be understood as intended-truth by the reader, bears false witness.

The articles states that Massie committed to “voting ‘no’ on every single bill or resolution,” which is easily taken as hyperbole, satirizing the undoubted fact that Massie departed more often than the norm from the Republican party line (primarily, I’d note, when the Republicans are defending pedophiles, bankrupting the country, or starting another war). That’s well and good, though it’s odd to critique a man for having principles.

The problem is the next sentence: “Though out of a job, Massie took solace in having never helped pass a bill during his time in Congress.” This statement is blatantly false. Maybe it could be considered accurate and satirical if all his supported bills being insignificant. Maybe it could have a point if he were known for being ashamed of the bills he’d helped with (he isn’t) or for a bunch of bad bills (he ain’t). But Massie was the author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a bill it takes actual dishonesty for any politically cognizant person to call insignificant and impressive self-deception to call a bad bill (hypocrisy too, if the critic liked Trump in 2020-2024). He got that bill passed, and his PRIME act looks to be passing too. 

That single sentence, because the article’s structure and content imply it to be truth, constitutes not a satirical lie, an untruth conveying truth, but an actual lie, a bearing of false witness.

Example #3

Here’s the article that got me thinking on this topic in systematic terms: “Massie Blames Defeat On Jews Of Rural Kentucky.” Now, that headline alone (and remember, many don’t read the headline) shows the problem. The BB being what it is, nobody informed will take the headline as a literal truth; nobody takes it as Massie literally having said that. But what truth is this lie implying, in the way satire implies? The implication is clearly that Massie is stupid for connecting his defeat to Jews. That is false witness in two ways, one subtle, one blatant.

The subtle way is this: Massie never blamed Jews in the slightest for the defeat. If you listen to his concession speech, which I highly recommend, you wouldn’t have heard a word of anti-Semitism. What you would have heard is critique of Israel, mostly in passing, and an implication that Gallrein, Massie’s basement-campaigning opponent, is compromised by Israel, as well as by Israel-aligned money (because that’s what ‘Miriam Adelson’ means). Massie has nothing against the Jews. The only way this article can get that out of his speech is by making ‘Israel’ mean ‘Jews,’ which it doesn’t.

The blatant false witness comes inasmuch as it argues Israel-aligned money wasn’t important in the race. 20+ million dollars matters in a primary race, particularly one with a lower-cost media market. If you think nearly $200 a voter can be spent on a race without affecting it, I have got a few private islands to sell you. That’s the equivalent of spending $31 billion in a national race, about 3 times the estimated total spending for Trump in 2024 and 15 times the Trump campaign’s actual budget (I use a source probably prone to overestimate Trump’s funding, note. Its bias therefore strengthens my case). And the money was spent on a comparatively cheap media environment, meaning it was more effective dollar-for-dollar than Trump’s 2024 money could have been. Now consider that millions upon millions of those dollars came from professed Israel-fanatics, like Miriam Adelson (Israeli citizen, though also technically an American citizen). Massie saying that Gallrein is over-connected to Israel seems reasonable now, doesn’t it? As does saying that Israeli money was decisive in the matter.

Conclusion

‘It’s a joke’ can’t be a get-out-of-jail-free card. Satire can carry and does carry truth, even if it cloaks that truth in a lie. Neither the Babylon Bee nor any other humorist can’t claim ‘I’m funny’ when it bears false witness. Deception is deception is deception, and God does not love the liar. We too must be careful, both in making and in receiving satires (or sarcasm, its cousin). Laugh, perhaps, but look also to whether the humor bears truth.

God bless.