Yesterday at work I saw two videos from an ABC show called What Would You Do?  Up front I want to say that I have never watched the show except for when we are shown clips at work, which has amounted to only three or four clips that I can recall.  But the two I saw yesterday caused me to do some digging and what I found was disappointing.  The show features staged events where unwitting passers-by have their responses to these staged scenarios captured on hidden camera.  That actually sounds like an interesting idea for a show...until you see the staged scenarios, which are presented as real-life commonplace situations. The first clip we watched yesterday was set in a deli, where the cashier and a customer were actors.  The cashier was by all visible appearances a man of middle-eastern descent.  He also wore a kufi, a thobe, and a beard, all of which, in tandem, made it crystal clear that he was Muslim.  The other actor, the customer, was a young man wearing a t-shirt with an enormous American flag, emblazoned with the familiar phrase "God Bless America" written in large block letters.  The unwitting subject of the video was a U.S. military serviceman in fatigues.  The serviceman was checking out with the Muslim cashier, when the actor in line behind him began to loudly berate the cashier, telling him that he didn't belong here.  He went on to try to enlist the serviceman in his abuse of the cashier, asking him why he wasn't upset that a Muslim was there.  True to form, the serviceman defended the cashier and eventually told the other "customer" that he needed to leave.

The second video clip featured four actors, all of them young men, apparently teenagers, standing in the middle what looked like a New Jersey boardwalk, a high-traffic area, out in the open.  The three bigger boys, one of whom wore a conspicuous cross on a chain around his neck, physically accosted the smaller boy and surrounded him.  They loudly taunted and insulted him with a barrage of homosexual epithets.  The smaller boy tried to get away, but the bigger guys wouldn't let him, and they even took his backpack from him.  Again, observers stepped in and put a stop to the situation.  This clip included commentary that cited the high suicide rate among homosexuals, and baselessly linked it to harassment.

I was very upset about these videos on a few points.  Both incidents were staged, which begs the question:  "If these types of incidents are commonplace, where are the real examples?"  Why do incidents that happen all too often have to be staged?  We constantly see hoaxes of hateful actions, that divide people into groups and pit them against each other, usually for political gain.  When they are exposed for the lies that they are, some people still cling to them, saying that they are raising awareness (awareness of things that don't really happen, apparently).  We saw hands up, don't shoot, which turned out to be completely false.  We saw Gustavus Adolphus College's Diversity Leadership Council get caught posting flyers advocating white supremacy.  We saw a Beloit College student paint his own dorm with anti-Islamic graffiti and report it to the police as though someone else had committed the act, saying that he felt threatened because of his religion.  We saw Concerned Student 1950 leader Jonathan Butler, on video, walk into University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe's car, then claim that Wolfe had tried to run him down because of his skin-color.  There are countless other examples in recent memory that show us how destructive this fostering of victimhood as a virtue truly is.

This dishonest representation of reality was on full display in the clips that I saw from ABC's What Would You Do?, so I visited the show's site and quickly recognized that the vast majority of their videos featured staged scenarios meant to perpetuate the far-left lie that America is a bigoted, backward, hateful place.  And the two clips that drew my attention in the first place showcased anti-Christian bias (as well as a few others on the site), as the conscious decision was made to outfit the antagonist actors in a God Bless America t-shirt and a cross, committing horrific acts that we would be very hard-pressed to find in real-life.  However, we can easily provide real-life examples of anti-Christian bigotry and hatred.  We can see our own government penalizing and forcing out of business private enterprises who for religious purposes, won't bow to the idol of same-sex "marriage".  And who could forget Dan Savage's remarks at the 2012 "Journalism on the Edge" conference, where, speaking before an audience of high school students on the evils of "bullying" and intolerance, he referred to the Bible as "bull!@#$" three separate times?  He went on to misrepresent the teachings of the Bible, and to misrepresent the history of Christianity and slavery.  When some students walked out during his rant, he mocked them saying that they were "pansy-%^&*(."

So what can we do?  I'm so glad you asked.  We are taught in 1 Peter 3:15-16 to "sanctify Christ as Lord in [our] hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks [us] to give an account for the hope that is in [us], yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which [we] are slandered,those who revile [our] good behavior in Christ may be put to shame."  Honor these Words from the Lord.  Pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:28).  Let their slander continue to be baseless, showing itself for what it is.

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Timpf, Katherine. "College 'Diversity Council' Admits to Posting Fake Racist Flyers On Campus." National Review. National Review, 23 Mar. 2017. Web. 05 Apr. 2017.

United States of America. Department of Justice. Department of Justice Report Regarding the Criminal Investigation into the Shooting Death of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson. Washington D.C.: n.p., 2015. Print.

What Would You Do? Prod. Anneke Foster. Perf. John Quinones. 2013. Stop Gay Bullying. ABC, 11 Aug. 2013. Web. 5 Apr. 2017.

What Would You Do? Prod. Oliver Miede and Michaela Dowd. Perf. John Quinones. 2014.Soldier Defends Muslim Worker. ABC, 23 Mar. 2014. Web. 5 Apr. 2017.

"Who's the Bully: Dan Savage Attacks Christian Teens in the Name of Tolerance." Fox News. FOX News Network, 30 Apr. 2012. Web. 05 Apr. 2017.