Welcome to another Thursday UNFILTERED blog post, the only blog that is built differently than every other blog. Possibly incorrectly.
“Gossip dies when it hits a wise person’s ears. Rumors are started by haters, carried by fools, and believed by idiots.”
~ Amit Kalantri and Ziad K. Abdelnour
This article was inspired by a powerful piece on The Radical Reformation website that I read a few weeks ago. I’ll share where you can find it at the end. It’s well worth reading.
As most of you know, my new book is designed to unlock the New Testament letters in a fresh and powerful way.
Many of the letters in the New Testament follow a similar pattern. The first part of the letter unveils the glories of Christ and the place of the believers in Him. The second part addresses aspects in the lives of the believers that are not in line with the life of Christ.
This article is in the spirit of the latter.
The average human brain makes roughly 35,000 decisions every day. That’s a lot of mental processing power. So when your coworker tells you that Jethro from accounting is secretly dating the boss, your brain takes the shortcut.
Many people will accept the gossip, hook line and sinker without questioning—even though this is a clear violation of Proverbs 18:17:
“Any story sounds true until someone sets the record straight.”
And Matthew 7:12:
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
Welcome to the wonderful world of cognitive bias—where more and more people fail at being objective, and most of them will never admit it.
This happens with fake news, with gossip, and with evangelism. In the latter, you are doing your best to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth is the world’s true Lord. And you’re met with “don’t confuse me with the facts.”
People believe what they want. Even in the face of incontrovertible facts.
The Comfort of Confirmation
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt puts it elegantly: “The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor.” When someone hears a juicy rumor, many people don’t analyze its probability. They rather fit it into their existing narrative about the world.
So let’s say that Toby is accused of kidnapping his step-son. Janet knows a man who did the same thing, so when the rumor hits her hearts, she’ll be inclined to accept the rumor without blinking – even if it’s categorically false.
And if the rumor happens to confirm what a person already thinks about someone?
Game over.
“Yea, this accusation against Ferris Snickelfritz sounds exactly like what Constance Noring did. And he’s in jail now. Also, I never cared for Ferris, so the accusation has to be true.”
The only thing is that the rumor you heard ISN’T about Mr. Noring. Ferris is a totally different person. And perhaps if you actually knew him, you’d like him.
Seth Godin wisely said, “Just because someone has a microphone doesn’t mean that we should listen to them.”
The Internet has handed everyone a microphone. Sometimes that’s good. But in many cases, it’s horrific.
Critical thinking—and the path that Jesus taught us to walk in, which would be to go to the person being accused directly to confirm if it’s true or not (Matthew 7:12)—left the building hours ago.
Dr. Elliot Aronson, pioneer of cognitive dissonance theory, explains that “we tend to accept information that confirms our existing beliefs and reject information that contradicts them.”
In other words, if you already think Shaniqua in the marketing department is two-faced, you’ll swallow whole any rumor painting her as meth addict – even though she may not be.
The Social Survival Game
Skepticism about rumors and gossip is socially expensive. When everyone at the lunch table is gossiping about how the new hire supposedly lied on her resume, if you’re the one who says:
“Hey, maybe you should verify this before spreading it around” — it makes you the buzzkill.
There is a “pile on” factor that the flesh loves. And it will always resist the Spirit.
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar argues that gossip evolved as a social bonding mechanism. His research suggests that about 60% of adult conversation qualifies as gossip – it’s how we establish group norms and alliances.
Clearly, gossip is fleshly, carnal, sinful. The Bible is unmistakable about this. That’s why Scripture condemns it over 40 times. (Some examples are Romans 1:29; 2 Corinthians 12:20; 1 Timothy 5:13; James 4:11; Ephesians 4:29; Proverbs 16:28; Proverbs 11:13; Proverbs 20:19; Proverbs 26:20; Proverbs 18:8; Leviticus 19:16; Psalm 34:13.)
Gossip (and its ugly cousin, slander) contracts the life of Christ which indwells all true Christians.
Questioning rumors doesn’t just show intellectual integrity and godliness. It sometimes marks you as an “outsider” to mobs thirsty for blood.
And yes, such carnality does exist in the so-called “Christian” community as ironic (and tragic) as that is.
The Illusion of Knowledge
“The problem isn’t that people don’t have access to information,” says digital sociologist Dr. Julie Smith. “It’s that they don’t apply any filters to the information they consume.”
For example, suppose Les Cash hears a juicy accusation against Professor Dilbert Pickles. The rumor is aggressively spread by Walter Melon.
Cash doesn’t personally know Melon. And he doesn’t really know Pickles. Not personally, anyway.
So instead of researching Melon (the accuser) and his history (to see if Melon is credible or not)—and instead of going directly to Pickles, which Cash himself would want if he were the one being accused of something—Cash puts his brain on hold and blindly accepts the gossip.
Tragically, people will spend four hours researching which 4K TV to buy but zero minutes verifying whether that shocking thing they heard about another person is actually true.
When you see a professing Christian slandering and/or gossiping about another brother or sister in Christ, what’s the motivation behind it?
It’s virtually always hatred and contempt. The slandered/gossiper wants all out destruction of the individual. And that hatred and contempt is typically born out of one or two things: Jealousy or personal offense.
The slanderer is either jealous of the accused or they took personal offense at something they said, wrote, or did.
These are the exact same motivations that operate in the darkened hearts of middle school and high school bullies who wish to destroy another human.
Breaking the Cycle
So how do we fix this mess? Here are some tips that actually work, if you care to apply them:
1) Remember that a rumor tells you more about the rumormonger than the subject of the rumor.
People spread information that serves their own psychological needs. Regrettably, smear merchants exist—even in the professing Christian world.
So what’s ironic is that a person will hear gossip about someone, and never think twice about researching the person who is spreading such gossip.
Someone wisely said, “An accusation from a narcissist is self-confession.”
Most of the time, slanderers are narcissists, trafficking in abject dishonesty. And they are incapable of receiving correction.
Unfortunately, smear merchants have actually increased with the popularity of social media. Jordan Peterson calls such people “reputation-savagers,” a fitting description.
2) Treat the accused the way YOU would want to be treated if you were the object of gossip and rumor.
This means two things:
A. Don’t believe an accusation without verification FROM the person being accused. If they deny it, the burden of proof lies on the accuser.
This is how our justice system works. You’ve no doubt heard about the presumption of innocence (innocent until proven guilty) and habeas corpus.
It’s not “guilty before proven innocent.” It’s the other way around—innocent until proven guilty.
When Rick Warren was falsely accused about something not long ago, he responded with the truth and added these words:
“Shoot first, clarify later” shows they have unloving reasons to hate you.
‘Speaking before listening is foolish & rude’ Pr. 18:13”
Like Jesus and Paul before him, John (the apostle) and his co-workers were falsely accused with “wicked words” by one toxic leader.
“When I come, I will report some of the things he [Diotrephes] is doing and the evil accusations he is making against us.” (3 John 10, NLT)
“So if I come, I will call attention to his [Diotrephes] malicious slander against us.” (3 John 10, BLB)
“Therefore, if I come, I will call attention to his [Diotrephes] deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words.” (3 John 10, WEB
B. Go direct. This one’s a no-brainer, but many Christians never do it. Go directly to the person being gossiped about with an open mind to hear their response.
This too is based on the golden standard that Jesus gave us all and which fulfills the entire Law of God (Matthew 7:12).
The harsh truth is this: we’re all susceptible. As philosopher Karl Popper noted, “True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.”
In a world of instant information and five-second attention spans, the most rebellious thing you can do (rebellious to the world and the flesh) and the most honoring thing you can do before God (and His beloved children) is pause, question, investigate the source, and most importantly, go to the person being gossiped about before believing one syllable of the rumor.
As promised, check out the post that inspired this article on The Radical Reformation website – 5 Ways To Actively Deal with Gossip and Slander.
Fasting and Answered Prayer