It was a warm, starlit night. The campfire was crackling, and I was surrounded by a large cadre of campers my age. Every one of us was perched on the edge of the log we were sitting on, completely engrossed in the story the young adult counselor was telling in impeccable detail.
“The family lived in the house right up there… One stormy night, the father got up to go to the bathroom, and when he walked by his son’s bedroom, he noticed the door was wide open. When he looked inside to see if his son was okay, to his shock and horror, the boy was gone. For days—and then weeks—hundreds of people searched the forest and the lake looking for him. Sadly, they never found him. But some say that late at night, if you’re really quiet, you can still hear the sound of a boy crying. Let’s be as still as possible and see if we can hear him.”
Decades after I first heard that story, I’ve listened to many versions of it told around that same campfire. Campers become counselors, counselors become staff, and each has their own rendition. What never seems to change is that no one completely questions whether the story is, in fact, true.
While there’s nothing like a good ghost story—or fable, myth, or parable—there is real danger in weaving a tale of untruth as though it were reality, especially when it continues to be shared and reshared without its accuracy ever being examined.
As Jonathan Swift wrote, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
That campfire story has stayed with me not because of its plot, but because of what it represents. How many stories do we still hear—around different kinds of fires today—that no one stops to question? Some are harmless traditions; others quietly shape how we see the world, other people, even God.
Scripture reminds us, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). Yet freedom requires discernment. The Apostle Paul urged the early church to “test everything; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Truth, in this sense, isn’t passive—it’s something we must pursue, especially in a culture where repetition can so easily masquerade as proof.
Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned that “the great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts,” reminding us that untruth often hides in respectability and routine. Søren Kierkegaard wrote that “there are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” And Hannah Arendt, reflecting on the nature of propaganda, observed that “the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction… no longer exists.”
Even in more ordinary settings—our new’s feeds, conversations and other communities—the same dynamic is at work. Stories told with conviction but without examination can slowly harden into ‘truths’ that guide whole groups of people. As Brené Brown notes, “When we deny the story, it defines us. When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending.”