I have worked with several different churches as the youth director for eight years of my life. In that time, I have grown to love and hate the church environment as a full-time staff person. The one thing that has made me jaded above everything else is the church gossip. What started out as simply telling rumors about fellow congregation members over coffee and donuts, made a startling change to gossiping via prayer requests. The idea that we share other people’s business that we probably do not have the full story on drives me bonkers.
So you can imagine my disdain when I see the church gossips starting to make a beeline towards digital communications. Even worse, many people are making a profit off of this gossip. One recent situation of this that pushed me over the edge to write this article? Mark Driscoll and Acts 29.
Mark Driscoll & Acts 29
If you are someone that is proactive about church leadership in any capacity or simply like Mars Hill or Mark Driscoll, you have heard the news that they and the Acts 29 Network church planting may be parting ways. Okay, so that’s news, no harm there.
The problem comes when people decide to give their input on the situation, shame one organization or the other, and simply gossip about the situation that I become enraged. Simply look at your Facebook or Twitter feed for Driscoll or Mars Hill comments, both positive and negative, that decide they must give their input on the situation. Further, look at the comments on articles at ChurchLeaders.com or Patheos that report on the news of the situation.
Do they have a right to an opinion? Yes.
Do they have the full story? Unless they are part of that board of directors talk or a trusted mentor to Mark’s, no.
WWDJ
As Christians, is it their place to gossip about this? Absolutely not.
This is one very public, very national version of the digital church gossip, but it can happen in a more overt and local level too. I’ve had one friendship ruined because they decided to take their nasty habit of gossiping to their Facebook feed and I called them out on it. The truth of the matter is, it’s a huge problem and one that social media, blogging, and other digital communications that are not as public are making more prevalent.
So my question to you is, how do we stop it?
What is the place of the church if a leader finds gossip online?
And what actions should Christians take when they see this happen with friends, family, and neighbors they know are Christian?
[Original unedited ‘Shh’ image via martins.nunomiguel via Compfight cc]
Adam Shields says
I think you are right that we should not be engaging in gossip, but I am unclear if you really have defined what you mean by gossip in this post.
Gossip is not talking freely about publicly available news.
I do think there is a responsibility of Christians to either be at least somewhat knowledgeable about what you are talking about or keeping your mouth shut until you are somewhat knowledgeable.
One of the things that has frustrated me about the Driscoll/Mars Hill commenting (not the reporting so much but the comments) is that many seem to be saying, ‘I have no idea what has happened but I love Mark and he can’t have done anything wrong.’ Or ‘I know no idea who this guy is, but he has to be removed immediately.’
Both types of comments are completely unhelpful. Just because you can make a comment does not mean that you should make a comment. I think part of the question in addition to ‘is this gossip’ is ‘does my comment matter,’
I think in particular recent cases like Driscoll, SGM and Gothard are cases where it has been years if not more than a decade of slow steady groups of people saying, ‘hey we are trying to go about this appropriately, but these guys in charge are not listening and we think they are doing damage to the church as a whole and someone needs to do something about it.”
That is not to say that every ‘watchdog’ group is worth listening to. Many are just nutcase conspiracy theories or people with wingnut theology that should be ignored. So my tendency has been to ignore accusations against leaders. But I think there needs to be some better balance. Yes we need to give other Christians the benefit of the doubt, and I know multiple Christians leaders that have been unfairly and inappropriately maligned for things that they did not do. In most cases the accusers are not quite well and need some assistance of their own and the outcries seem to be some type of call for help.
But, there have been too many recent cases where the outcry has been slow, steady and from a variety of unrelated sources and they should be investigated.
Social media is a problem when used inappropriately, but also a way of brining attention to a topic that needs attention. My fear with the charge of gossip, and I have seen it frequently lately, is that it becomes another tool of shutting down people that need to be heard.
I read a long but worthwhile article ( http://theotherjournal.com/2014/07/07/scandalizing-john-howard-yoder/ ) about John Howard Yoder and how the Mennonites bodies he was a part of came back and reinvestigated both Yoder and their own prior investigations into his impropriety. One of the parts that really jumped out to me is how Yoder used Matt 18-15-20 to shut down abuse victims and stop investigations. That was clearly not how Jesus was intending those verses to be used. Similarly, in an internet world of public pronouncements, we can’t privately talk to everyone that makes a public pronouncement, that is not to say that the verses are now meaningless, but that they need to be negotiated in a different way. (And one of those ways may be to not directly confront people that are not within your sphere of influence.)
This comment is already too long, but while I agree that gossip is bad, I am uncomfortable with too broad of a definition of gossip that shuts down conversations or knowledge of a situation inappropriately.
Jeremy Smith says
I think it is outside the scope of this website to define what church gossip as overall, though if you have experienced it, you know it to be one of the worst things to hit the American church. I’d leave the definition of church gossip to others that like to debate those silly little things and you are correct in reporting news is not gossip (hence why I still approve of patheos and churchleaders articles).
I certainly do not want to stop conversations and for those that use “it’s gossip” to cover up or dissuade an argument, they are just as in the wrong.
That being said, the digital gossip I have seen is rampant and unfortunate. Blogs giving their ten cents, though 90% of it is opinionated and even worse, they likely haven’t read the whole article, just the title and first paragraph.
Having clarified that, do you see any further problems?
Adam Shields says
I think you are wrong that the definition of gossip is not important here. Because this is a tech blog and because people that read this are people that deal with church from an inside perspective (and often are people involved in policy creation) if you are going to talk about gossip as a problem I think you need to give at least a partial explanation of what gossip is and is not.
Otherwise, it is just a rant. And I am all for a good rant occasionally, but a good rant rarely makes a different in the long term.
I am not disagreeing that gossip in the form of prayer requests is a problem. I am not disagreeing that opinion based on inadequate information is a problem. I am not disagreeing that opinion blogs that are not involved with any of the players rarely are helpful.
But if you are saying gossip is a particular problem for online space (and I am not disagreeing) then there needs to be at least some attempt at clarifying why just talking about, why is news not a problem but gossiping is a problem (as one example.)
Because trolling (which I think is different from gossip) seems to be a bigger issue in many of these cases. After all, gossip, while it can be problematic, doesn’t really affect the main characters if no one really know them.
If I talk about two people (say two movie stars that may be getting a divorce), and I don’t know them and don’t actually know anyone that knows them, what has actually occurred. It may be unseemly, it may not be edifying to anyone hearing it, but is that gossip?
Because at least part of the problem here seems to me to be the very nature of celebrity. When you know the people, gossip is pretty clear whether it happens over text message or coffee. We are pretty clear that gossip has occurred.
But with celebrity we feel like we know people that we have never met, will never meet and don’t know that we exist. With twitter and other social media we have (in Rhett Smith’s words) ambient intimacy that makes us feel like we know people. So we discuss them as if we do know them and that discussion includes personal details that may feel gossip-y.
Passing on untruthful details is wrong. That is why urban legends are such a problem. But is the problem the untruthful part or the fact that we are talking about them at all.
Maybe I am just asking for something that you are not intending to give. It has felt to me over the past couple weeks that we are focusing a lot of emotional effort into people we don’t know. So maybe that is the problem of online gossip, that in passing it on we are distracting ourselves from our actual lives.
Back to thinking on this for a while. Sorry for the distraction.
Jeremy Smith says
By no means is my task to define gossip such that my argument is otherwise invalid. This is not a theological situation. If you simply cannot have a discussion without a full definition of it, then take this one which is fairly all encompassing for my article here:
“Gossip is the inappropriate communication of unflattering, embarrassing, hurtful or humiliating information about a person to another person. Truth is irrelevant.”
For the digital side of everything, I can flesh that out if needed. News is factual. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good news, fully researched, and there is bad news, think tweet length articles. Trolling is with the explicit intent to harm or hinder online. It can be words to a person or about a person but the hope is that you debilitate them in someway and at its very core is sinful.
Digital gossip is the same as defined above, but will be archived forever, has the capacity to reach tens of people to tens of thousands of people, and can be about a celebrity or a local person. The example is about Mark who I would give celebrity status to, but digital gossip can happen to your church of 100 people, to a pastor blogger with an audience of 20, or to a ministry like World Vision that makes an internal decision.
Now that I have semantics out of the way, want to add something to the dialogue or refute what I have said?
Adam Shields says
I am not trying to pick a fight or be a troll, but I think this is important for Christian, especially those in the tech space to explore.
The problem I think is with your definition and I think your definition is a common one.
The word ‘inappropriate’ is probably where we will disagree. Because I think that while that may be good in intention, it is vague and leaves a lot of room for disagreement.
So I hear (which I know is not what you actually said) “Gossip is the communication of unflattering, embarrassing, hurtful or humiliating information about a person to another person. Truth is irrelevant.” And the words I am hearing mean, you literally cannot report negative factual information without it being gossip. I think you will say, but you are leaving out ‘inappropriate’ which is really important. And I agree, I am just hesitant because one person’s inappropriate is another person’s appropriate.
I used to work for a denomination. A state level denominational newspaper fired their editor because the editor wrote documented articles about sex abuse within the denomination in the state. He was charged with ‘gossiping’, but defended himself by saying that writing factually and honestly about a problem that needed to be dealt with is not gossip. The denominational office re-organized the state newspaper to become focused on announcements and pr puff pieces and removed the news from the job of the state editor.
Now that might have been the right thing to do for the denomination, they were having some budget issues and actual news reporting can be expensive for a small office. But it also had the effect of communicating that ‘we are not interested in accountability, we want to look good to the world. Talking about child abuse hurts the cause of Christ.’
So it comes down to ‘inappropriate’. And that is about wisdom and maturity. A child does not know that it is inappropriate to walk around naked so they have to be taught. And those within the church also need to be taught what is gossip and what is not.
(there is a good Tripp and Tyler video about stuff toddlers can get away with that seems relevant here.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOs5K5-NtXs
Jeremy Smith says
You understand that this is still all theological based and COMPLETELY takes away from my article. You want a whole article on defining gossip, I get that. I simply want to make light where there is darkness. I don’t need to have a full definition to do so. Even if my perspective of it is a bit different than yours. You have spent so much time and have not once answered either question in the article…
Adam Shields says
Sorry, I will bow out. I did not intend to derail your post into another area you were not interested in.
Jeremy Smith says
Adam,
My thought, you should write an article for Churchmag and fully define digital gossip! I am truly a man about big ideas, overarching themes, and calls to action. You seem like the intelligent man for the nitty gritty, ensuring everyone is on the same page, and further the Gospel through correct thinking kind of man and I personally would be appreciative to that thought!
Adam Shields says
This is not directly about gossip, but I think addresses some of the questions I was having, or at least gives some more context to the thought behind my questions.
http://bookwi.se/sort-topic-john-yoder-problem/
Mathew Borja says
Well…
*Puts down popcorn. Claps slowly*
Jeremy Smith says
You agree? Anti-gossip?
Eric Dye says
I really appreciate how Adam (comments above) has parsed ‘gossip’ and ‘trolls’ and is really thinking this through. I also agree that the ‘gossip charge’ can be used to silence the truth—just as Adam pointed out in his comments.
I don’t think Adam has tried to derail the post or even miss the point, I just think Adam thinks past the edges and understands that “what we should do about digital church gossip” is to better job of defining what it is in the first place.
🙂
Jeremy Smith says
He has a point! My recommendation? Get that man a blog post in his name on it! I’d read it.
Kristy Henry says
Gossip is so dangerous for the unity of the church. I am defining it as such: “one who reveals secrets, one who goes about as a talebearer or scandal-monger.” A gossiper is a person who has privileged information about people and proceeds to reveal that information to those who have no business knowing it. Looking at intent and the type of information shared.
Gossipers often have the goal of building themselves up by making others look bad and exalting themselves. Gossipers speak of the faults and failings of others, or reveal potentially embarrassing or shameful details regarding the lives of others without their knowledge or approval. Even if they mean no harm, it is still gossip. http://www.gotquestions.org/gossip-Bible.html#ixzz3AOZn0rIV
We actually had this issue come up in our church in the recent months. A church issue had made its way to social media and had spread like wildfire locally.
A few of the things that we did as a body to stop it:
1. Pray. Wisdom on how to deal with the situation. For loving words, for a patient and grace-filled heart.
2. Use scripture. Sending private messages to remind those who have posted gossip imploring them to use Matt. 18. Go to that individual personally and privately. Try to work it out with them. If that doesn’t work, go with a couple. If that doesn’t work then deal with it as a church body. But, certainly no where in Matt. 18 have we been instructed as believers to take it to the worlds megaphone. Help them by being an example of Matthew 18 and discussing the gossip post with them privately.
3. Not commenting or liking posts. Many chose not to like or comment on posts that might shed a bad light on the body of Christ or might not contain all the facts. We need to choose not to actively spread the rumors or gossip.
3. Leadership Addressed. Our leadership addressed the parties that were involved. They sought them out to reconcile with them and explain that as a church body, this does nothing for unity in the church and what other see of us outside the church.
Just my 2-cents. But our church has since healed and moved past it. Praise God for that.
Jeremy Smith says
Kristy,
I hope that relationships could be mended in the process. I love your the fact that you used social media as a solution as well. The quick resonse would be to say “I need to correct their thinking right now.” The downside on social media is that now others will see you commented on something and be influenced negatively as well. GREAT point!