What was the question again?

I'm not normally much of a thriller-fan when it comes to movies, but Doug Liman's recent based-on-a-true-story pic, "Fair Game", starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn grabbed me mostly because the people involved in it made it worth a look. The film deals with the scandal involving CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson (Watts) and her husband US Ambassador Joe Wilson (Penn). When Joe is employed by the CIA to investigate an allegation that the Iraqi government is sourcing materials for MDIs from Niger, he finds nothing to support this allegation. Thus, when the US government publicly declares that evidence of such activity HAS been found and uses this to justify the decision to go to war with Iraq, Wilson goes public to discredit the government's claims. The result of this move is that government workers expose Wilson's wife's identity as a CIA operative, in an attempt to make his evidence seem invalid, disgracing both Wilson and his wife in the process.

There is a wonderful moment late in the film when Wilson is addressing a group of students to expose what has taken place. A trick, he declares, has been played on the American public. In revealing his wife's identity, the issue has shifted from the flawed basis for the war in Iraq to questions of his and his wife's integrity:

"How did the question move from 'Why are we going to war?' to 'Who is that man's wife?' I asked the first question. Someone else asked the second. It worked. Its still working. Because we still don't know the truth. But you all know my wife's name."

Something similar, I think, can often happen to us when we are attempting to tackle the big issues of religious faith, but instead get distracted by minute details that are really not important. It happens to me all the time. And the worst thing is that it keeps us circling around the same point and not progressing - that, or we fail to see what the issue really is.

That happened to me this morning. I was reading the story in 1 Kings 10-11, which tells of the great wealth of King Solomon, and then his apostasy from God, caused by his multitudes of foreign wives. Now, the story should have been a salient lesson. Solomon, the story tells us, was the wisest man on earth at the time. He was a great and powerful king, not because he was great or powerful in himself but because he knew better than any other person that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". He began there, and wisdom came next, and with it greatness and power. Then we see the trajectory that, though perhaps unique in its specifics, is relevant to most believers: we may not be tempted to marry a thousand women, but we will all have that something which gradually comes between us and God until it is a veritable wall dividing us. And we can start off so well. But without caution, without a healthy continued fear of the Lord, it could happen to any of us.

But this was not what I thought about when I read that passage this morning. I thought things like, "1000 wives - that's rather a lot. Clearly exaggeration." Or I thought, "Isn't it strange that, given all of Solomon's greatness and splendour, there is no evidence of him as a king outside of the Bible?"

Well, these are important questions to ask, and they do have their answers, if you look for them. That's not the point. The point is that, when you always ask these questions - questions which serve to discredit the Bible when you most need to trust it - then you never get properly fed. You also never get to the real truth, the truth that matters most.

Valerie and Joe Wilson had a powerful government trying to undermine their witness. We too have a force opposing us. It's subtle, invisible, and deadly. For me, it takes on the appearance of a calm, measured intellectual. It will look quite different for you. But the effect is invariably the same. Wherever we should go, whatever questions we should ask, whatever issues we should concern ourselves with, it will do its best to ensure that we go elsewhere. And it can happen when we least expect it. It can happen to the wisest, and the best, among us.