gossip, slander, information, and advice – part 4: a little advice

In case you are just catching this series, I’d like to take a minute to backtrack a bit, because the past few posts I’ve written lay some important groundwork for this conversation.

I started by talking about the distinctions between gossip, slander, and information, and how to discern into which of those categories an article or a video we might see about something ‘scandalous’ on the internet falls.  And the distinctions I think we can draw are, again, that:

• 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).

Then I talked about the implications of those definitions for us, in terms of what types of articles we should and shouldn’t share on social media and why, and the importance of checking our hearts and being aware of our motivations when we’re sharing something.

And then I talked about some of the reasons that all of this matters, and why we should take a good solid look at our hearts, to determine whether or not our words and our attitudes build trust or destroy it.

In this last post for this series, I’d like to take another look at that last thought, and maybe bring it home a little more.

Let’s start with that seemingly random definition from the first post in this series:

• 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.)

Seeking counsel is actually a really wise thing to do.  We are none of us perfect, we have flawed perceptions, and owning that and seeking clarity is smart, especially when we know our emotions are running high.  But like many things, when taken to extremes, “seeking counsel” can actually quickly derail into – you guessed it – gossip and slander.

If it’s important to watch our tongues and guard our hearts when we’re talking about issues that set us off on social media involving people we don’t know – it’s just as, if not more, important to do the same in our personal, close-to-home, in-real-life social circles.

When we’ve been hurt, especially by someone we trusted, it’s logical that we would want to discuss it with someone.  And I would be the last person to say we shouldn’t.  I won’t even play the overly used (and sometimes abused) Matthew 18 card.  Sometimes we need to talk to someone else before we confront someone, especially if the question of sin is …well, questionable.  (Wait, what?!  Isn’t all conflict sin?  Well….  that’s probably a topic for another post, but to sum it up: no.   I don’t think so.)

If we don’t know what to do, we should seek counsel.  Or advice.  Or whatever we want to call it.

But once we’ve gotten that advice from one or two or maybe three or four people in our inner circle of people we can completely trust to

• a) keep the situation confidential,  and
• b) give us solid and wise advice

we need should either:

• act on it
• or not act on it.

But continuing to “seek counsel” in the name of “gathering more information” or “gaining wisdom” (or whatever other pretty facade we might try to give it) when we have already been given practical and godly advice – is crossing the line, especially if the situation we’re talking about involves someone in our local church community or circle of closest friends.

And this is where I think it gets tricky.

In the same way that we can thoughtlessly share via social media a scathing comment about an article we read and forget that we’re talking to a lot of people who might then talk to a lot of people, it can be so easy to think “oh, I’m just having this conversation privately with a good friend” and forget that when we’ve had that same private conversation with 10 people, it’s no longer private, no matter how well-intentioned we were at the time.

Even if they never say another word to anyone about the conversation, those 10 people have opinions about the situation now.  And if the situation involves someone they know – they’ll have opinions about that, too.  And it will affect their decisions in the future regarding that person, whether we meant for that to happen or not.  And in this way – we have affected an entire community of people.

We were “seeking counsel” (which can often lead to “just venting”)- but the person we were venting about now has to deal with the ramifications of that.  In the best case scenarios, the people we vent to will stand up for our mutual friend and help us build healthier communication strategies.  In the worst case scenarios, our “venting” crossed the line into gossip and/or slander, and we’ve now caused a handful of people in our community to think negatively of someone they know.

And to be really simplistic yet blunt about it: that’s just not okay.

So I will say it again: watch it, Church.  If we find ourselves willing to judge, condemn, or criticize someone we don’t know on the internet, without doing the research to find out the facts – we need to ask ourselves if we have the same kind of bent towards the people we know.

If we do… well.  We know what to do about that.  (It’s called repentance.)

So what’s the verdict?  Do our words and our attitudes build trust or destroy it?

And where there’s room to grow, can we give ourselves (and let God give us) the grace to learn from our mistakes and move forward?

Let’s do that together.

photo courtesy of ©Depositphotos.com / photography33