gossip, slander, information, and advice – part 1: definitions

I’ve been thinking about all of this for awhile, watching the headlines and the articles and the conversations that have popped up in my Facebook newsfeed over the past few weeks.  It seems there are “scandals” pretty much everywhere in North American Christendom right now.

• Michael Gungor might be an evolutionist.
• Mark Driscoll should probably resign.
• Joel Osteen’s wife may or may not be a heretic.

And there have been dozens more over the years (like that one time John Piper said you shouldn’t allow yourself to be influenced by women who write commentaries, especially if you know them or that one time Rob Bell wrote a book about hell – which was also about heaven).  And it seems like pretty much everyone else in North American Christendom (including me) has an opinion about all of it – regardless of whether or not they know Michael, Mark, Victoria, John, Rob, or anyone else in the headlines.

So the questions on the table this week are:

• Where are the lines between gossip and slander and factual information?
• Is it gossip or slander to talk about famous people?
• Does any of this actually matter?  If so, why?
• Do the answers to these questions have implications for situations that are closer to home (as in, with people we know)?

I’ll preface all of this by saying that I am still working thru these questions, so please take anything I say about this with a grain of salt and a lot of prayer and discernment, ok?  I am thinking out loud this week.  My blog, my space, 5th amendment.  I am Happy the person, not Happy the pastor, or Happy the anything else (at least for this series of posts), ok?  No extra weight to these words.  They are just thoughts.

Before we can really look at any specific scandals, I think we actually need to start with some definitions.  I looked up gossip and slander and information in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, and here are the distinctions I think we can make:

• Gossip is personal.  It’s about the details of people’s lives that they may or may not want others to know.  It’s characterized by sensationalism and chatterbox-like behaviour, and can be a public revelation of things that were meant to be private.
• Slander is saying something that isn’t true about someone, with the end result that the person’s character is perceived by others in a negative light.  It is misrepresentation that causes negative opinions.  (And I would add that it can be perceived as incredibly personal to the person who is being slandered, whether they know the people who are slandering them or not.)
• Information is knowledge of facts (generally confirmed by multiple sources).

And here is one more definition we’re going to need; it’s not relevant to this conversation yet, but it will be soon:

• Advice is a recommendation about what you should do.  Another word for this is counsel.  (Christians use “counsel” when they want to sound holy about asking for advice.)

So how do we discern what is gossip, what is slander, and what is simply information… especially on the internet?!

Well…  I could just say “good luck with that” – and that would probably be mostly accurate.

But I think there are some factors we can keep in mind when we’re reading articles or watching videos online that will help:

• What’s the tone of the article/news report?  Is it critical? Or open-minded?  Does it take a big-picture view of the situation, and account for opposing view-points?  Or is the author’s opinion evident in ways that influence the perspective of the piece?
• Is the video you’re watching a short clip, or a full-length piece?  If it’s a smaller piece of a greater whole, has it been taken out of context?  And how easy is it to find out?
• Does the person writing the article/providing commentary on the video know the person it’s about IRL?
• Are there other articles/posts/videos saying the same thing?  What are their sources?  And what are the reputations of those voices?
• Are there dissenting voices about the issue?  How strong are they?  What are the reputations of the dissenting voices?  And what’s the cause of the dissent?  Is it theology?  Publicity?  Impact/influence?

All of these factors matter in determining whether what you are reading or watching is accurate, factual, informational, gossipy, or slanderous.

So now that we’ve laid a foundation for how to categorize what you’re reading/seeing/hearing – let’s move on to “does it matter?!”  More on that in the next post – so stay tuned!

In the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts.  Are these definitions helpful to you?  Why or why not?  And what do you think – is it gossip or slander to express a negative opinion about famous people?

photo credit: ©Depositphotos.com / olly18