Maybe we should start a movement to identify and expose popular myths. We could call it STULTUS, for “STamp out Urban Legends Totally (US)”.
You’ve probably heard this one before: a frog dropped into boiling water will jump out, but a frog placed in tepid water and slowly heated will fail to notice, and eventually succumb and become frog soup. This is usually presented as a warning against becoming too tolerant of evils.
Numerous preachers who have used the example will be disappointed to learn it’s not true.
That’s not a big deal, but a few times I’ve heard a preacher repeat an urban legend that’s embarrassingly false or even slanderous. So what do you do then?
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I think as long as the priest, minister, rabbi or whomever it is using that particular myth about the frog prefaces it by saying it is merely an old wives’ tale, it serves as a good analogy for the desensitizing our society has gone through toward evil and sin. I am no old fogey (I’m 33), but even a Gen-Xer like me is shocked at what is tolerated today as being acceptable in popular culture.