Pandemonium in the Church: Gossip

In October 2007, a new TV series called Gossip Girl begin airing in the United States after having enjoyed its first airing in Canada in September of the same year. Gossip Girl is an American drama television series based on the popular book series of the same name written by Cecily von Ziegesar. Narrated by the omniscient yet unseen blogger "Gossip Girl," the series revolves around the lives of socialite teenagers growing up on New York City's Upper East Side who attend elite academic institutions while dealing with friends, family, jealousy, and other issues.

As as a Christian, husband, father, and young adult Pastor I take seriously the truths and principles set forth in what I believe to be the word of God, the Bible. With that being said I have come to notice (even within myself) that professing Christians appear to have an affinity or predisposed proclivities to gossip. We like to talk. We like to talk about other people's lives and the challenges and issues they are facing. We like to talk about the problems they are having relative to the manner that we feel they should be handling it or otherwise. There is something about gossip that attaches itself to the desires of our Adamic nature, seemingly a death grip in disguise.

Gossip Girl and other shows with similar characteristics have injected post-modern, Enlightenment, and Kantian ideologies that have made us feel comfortable with offering our judgments and supplanting our ideas into other people's lives thereby making ourselves "living gossip columns." When I mention the Enlightenment I am referring to the European intellectual movement known as the Age of Enlightenment, also called the Age of Reason referring to philosophical developments related to scientific rationality in the 17th and 18th centuries. Ok, that's enough technical information, however, that age brought in an ideology of individualism that the world has yet to recover from. It basic tenet was that since I am a free individual, I am free to do what I want, when, how, and where I want, and if someone asks why, my individualism exempts from the obligation of explanation.

My next post will address very specific questions concerning this issue of gossip. They are as follows:

1. When is gossip, gossip?
2. Is gossip only when we malign someone else?
3. Is false testimony about ourselves gossip?
4. Does it make any difference who we are talking about, or what we are talking about?
5. When is it okay to talk about someone else?
6. How about in the use of an example in ministry?
7. Can we do it without names?
8. What are our motives?
9. Is our heart true or vindictive and self satisfying?
10. What is the purpose of bringing up a name or a situation if it’s not glorifying to God?
11. How does gossip affect our walk with the Lord?

See you next time!