Several years ago, I was talking to a young woman I was dating at the time, and she kept on hearing bad reports about me from one of her close friends, a young woman whom I had barely met a couple of times but basically did not know at all. It was rather irritating for me to find myself being slandered without merit or provocation, and I wanted to find out what exactly this young woman had against me. After some investigation, I found that this person had known a relative of mine who had (unsuccessfully) tried to pursue her romantically, and had simply assumed that my relative and I were the same person (we are not, which both of us are probably thankful for) and had simply slandered me with the bad report that she had seen and felt about my relative. What I found most striking, and disappointing, about the whole episode was that when the person found out that she had spent many months slandering the wrong person, insulting a decent and honorable young man she did not even know, she had not the slightest desire to apologize for the offense that she had caused. She simply did not understand that her actions were a wrong one. Unsurprisingly, when a later opportunity came for her to slander me personally over divisions in our church organization, she took it openly and happily, and all of the good works she has done (including, like me, a desire to serve internationally in teaching) cannot change the fact that she slandered a good man while claiming all the while to be a loving and true Christian while doing so.

At times, such as in the above case, slander is directed as us personally (if often in error). At other times, though, such slander and libel is directed at people on a class basis. To give one example, this morning I woke up to see a conversation between a current and former facebook friend (the former friend had been at one time quite close when we both lived in the same area) that involved some ad hominem attacks on all of those who were unemployed. The suggestion made by this former friend was that all of those who were unemployed for weeks or months simply were not working hard enough at finding work, suggesting 24-hour surveillance to show their laziness and lack of industry. Again, this is shockingly inappropriate behavior for someone who claims to be a Christian, but who apparently has little understanding of the sort of love and concern that we are supposed to have for others. The tendency to blame those who are suffering for their own mistakes, and not to recognize that there are larger difficulties that we have to deal with, is a shocking lack of love for one’s fellow man. To be sure, there are some people who may behave like that, who might view unemployment as a sort of vacation, but that has not been my own personal experience or that of the people I have seen in that position. Rather than laziness and amusement, the people I have seen who have struggled with somewhat long-term unemployment have been rather stressed out and upset about it, even to the point of serious depression about their frustrations.

I can speak personally on this matter. In late 2009 I was laid off from a good job because there had been a stop in construction for some months that finally caught up to the small company where I worked. For the next year I sought to find work in a wide variety of jobs simply to stay afloat, finding that the only companies interested in hiring me (since I was overeducated for the mcjobs that were available in the area and did not receive any response from them) were mostly involved with sales, until I found a position scoring written essays (something I did well and quickly). To be thought of as lazy because I called and e-mailed and faxed and mailed applications to a wide variety of jobs through the internet and through the newspaper, and because I called hiring consultants who basically said that there was nothing in my field (civil engineering) to look for is a most unjust thing. It is certainly unjust for anyone who claims to be building the character of God and Jesus Christ within them. We ought to be very wary about slandering people (something that many of us are not nearly wary about), but to slander people en masse ought to be something that is not named among us, yet too often we behave that way instinctively, not having sufficiently overcome our natures and our slander-filled environment.

In Revelation 22:14-15 there is a brief listing of that which will keep one outside of the New Jerusalem: “Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.” What makes a comment a libel or a slander is that it is not true. If we are condemned for our genuine faults, even in a public manner, we ought to take our lumps and accept our responsibility. It is, however, an entirely different matter to be slandered and libeled in a public fashion, especially since the protection of reputation and honor is such a difficult matter. In previous generations dueling and affairs of honor were formalized ways of expressing both proper contrition for one’s misdeeds of the pen or the tongue (which we are all prone to have at one time or another) as well as providing a way for those who had suffered from the lying lips of others to preserve their good name and honorable reputation. In our times the absence of such forms (aside from lawsuits or the threat thereof) has in many ways reduced the sense of importance that people have in preserving the honor and good name of other people.

While we cannot do anything about the behavior of other people, we can at least use the examples of the behavior of others as well as the Bible’s own harsh condemnation of those who love and practice lies by trying to tear down others and by refusing to openly and contritely retract false statements when they have been confronted with the truth. If we cannot change the way that others behave, we can change the way that we behave ourselves in setting an example both of a disdain for slandering people in large and unjust and stereotypical terms as well as in being quick to apologize honestly and openly when we have been confronted with error in our own characterizations of others. By showing a willingness to give the benefit of the doubt to others where we can, by not seeking to continually beat others over the head with their situation as showing evidence of some evil, and by showing love and concern for others rather than telling them that they deserve their trials and tribulations, we might actually begin to show some of the character and goodness of God and Jesus Christ within ourselves. Wouldn’t that be something? Then people might not have a just reason to consider our claims of being Christian ladies and gentlemen to be a case of mistaken identity.