Test the Spirits -- 1 John 4:1

How many Christians are taught that being gullible is the same thing as having great faith? I once read a missions book in which the writer taught that there were men among the Native Americans who could change back-and-forth from human beings into elk. 

It didn't matter that he had never seen this happen. It didn't matter that none of the folklore sources he used were reliable. It didn't matter that the average man weigh around 180-200 pounds and the average bull elk weighs around 700 pounds (so the transformation would require God's own power to create matter from nothing). Nope, it was taught as true, and if you doubted it, he accused you of being captive to a Western world-view. 

But it is not Christian, or smart, or "faithy", to believe every story we're told. Human beings make innocent mistakes, other people don't think clearly, and still other people tell lies. Test the spirits.