Did Helen Keller really exist?
by Pastor Steve Liersch
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Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar (1 John 5:10a).
I stumbled across an internet article from Inside Hook dated 6 January 2021 that stated:
This baffling bit of Gen Z culture comes to us courtesy of screenwriter Daniel Kunka, who took to Twitter last night to share the surreal discovery he happened upon after his teen nieces and nephews informed him that Helen Keller, the famed deaf and blind subject of The Miracle Worker, was a fraud who didn’t exist.
It went on to explore the basis of the theory and how it was being circulated and noted that millions of people agreed with the article. These days, the article and response are hardly surprising.
The original social media post was in 2020 by student and writer Isabella Lahoue. Kunka suggests Gen Z’s Helen Keller scepticism may stem from a broader generational tendency to challenge the media and other sources of authority in a quest for unfiltered truth. He concluded, ‘In this age of disinformation and disillusionment, the only thing we can know for certain is that “We’re all just one TikTok away from being erased from an entire generation”’.
If this is how current generations treat facts supported by live video footage, photo evidence, and people still living who saw her in person and read so much of her literature, is it any wonder that God’s word needs the work of the Holy Spirit to enable people to believe in Jesus? After all, he did live, die and come alive again 2000 years ago.
Of course, unbelief is nothing new. Disregarding credible truth and discrediting eyewitnesses has been inherent throughout history. The truth is what our legal system was set up to establish through the courts using witnesses. Establishing the truth in people’s hearts is the key role of the Holy Spirit as ‘Advocate’ or ‘Counsellor’, who enables us to believe what God wants us to about Jesus as his Son, our Lord and Saviour. We all need the Holy Spirit to believe.
Consider how social media and ‘fake news’ have eroded your confidence in believing what is true.
All-powerful God, help me believe what the Scriptures reveal as your saving truth about Jesus. Pour out your Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to lift the veil of deception that causes doubt and unbelief. Amen.
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