Should Christians gossip?

                  'Have you heard of the terrible family They,
                And the dreadful venomous things They say?
                Why, half the gossip under the sun,
                If you trace it back, you will find begun
                In that wretched house of They.'

               'The y Say'   by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.     
  

      ?Should a Christian gossip?? is a question I have been asked on more than one occasion.   I suppose what is meant by the term Christian is someone who believes in, and who is also struggling to become, Christ like; and by gossip, I assume I am to take the definition of the word ascribed to it by the majority of dictionaries.  If the answer to both my queries is yes, then my answer to the question must be no.  Gossip is a word used to describe idle, unconstrained talk, groundless rumours and tittle-tattle; and so for anyone to gossip, they must engage in such types of conversation, and when they engage in gossip then they must of necessity become a gossip.  George Eliot wrote:

?Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.?

      Rarely, if ever, do we when gossiping pass on verbatim the information learned at first hand.        Always we have to put on show that which we consider to be our own intimate understanding and definition of the subject under discussion by adding a further critical remark or two.        Therefore, like a brush fire, gossip feeds on itself until the eventual conflagration bears little resemblance to the original and no resemblance whatsoever to the truth.        When we engage in gossip we set ourselves up as judge, jury and, frequently, executioner.        Reputations are destroyed, as the gossip seems to possess a desperate need to inflate their own sense of righteousness at the expense of another.        It?s a fact that gossips rarely, if ever, dispense good news about someone.        That is understandable I suppose, for when praising someone else such praise would be in competition with whatever good qualities they themselves might possess.        Gossips have a holier-than-thou attitude that is sustained and nourished through the condemnation of others, and their need to feel superior in being first with the news is apparent in the way they commence gossiping with a phrase such as, 'Have you heard the latest about -?'

      There is always a danger attached to talking about someone else to a third person no matter how good our intentions might be.        Certainly I have found this to be so as I am far more likely to engage the listener?s attention by imparting a juicy bit of scandal - or if there is no known scandal, then I might hint at the possibility - than if I had praised some virtue of theirs.        It is so easy to camouflage bad intentions by first offering a tit-bit of praise at the outset, such as, 'Hasn?t Joan done well in her first year at college' then to follow it up closely with the character assassinating, 'but it?s a crying shame that she became pregnant and has no idea who the father is; it?s really upset her mother and father who are such a respectable couple'.     

      If the Christian had to comment on the progress of Joan at all, it would have been sufficient to offer the information about her excellent progress at college, as that would have enhanced her reputation.        The rest is simply character destroying rhetoric designed to make the person passing on the information appear to be a more moral, and in some other rather mysterious way superior type of individual.       A basic rule of thumb, when you feel it necessary to pass on information, is to do so only if it will help someone, and not to do so if it will interfere or hinder in some way his or her progress through life.     

      Recently I heard a sermon preached by an ex-army chaplain in which he gave three guidelines that should always be applied to any piece of information about someone before passing it on.       First, ask yourself the question, ?Is it true?? the second aspect to ponder should be ?Is it necessary?? and the third criteria to apply must be, ?Is it kind?? and if the information fails to meet all three then it should not be dispensed.        Two out of three is not good enough.       To that piece of advice I would add a further point for consideration and that is, 'are the motives right for wanting to talk about the person in the first place?'  After listening to that particular sermon I found that I had little to offer in the way of conversation for many days.     

       Another suspect reason for imparting information about another is that of reflected glory.        You know the kind of revelation I mean ?

'Have you heard that the eldest son of Sir Ivan Ideas has gained an honours degree at Cambridge, I was chatting to him the other day and he was so pleased'.

      There is a fair chance that the person telling you about Sir Ivan?s son doesn?t give a damn about him.        All they require is that you believe they are on speaking terms with a knight of the realm.     

       Shakespeare?s words are well worth remembering when next we are tempted to engage in gossip:

                                          My words fly up,
                                          My thoughts remain below;
                                          Words without thought
                                          Never to heaven go.

      We should all be thoughtfully kind about what we think and say about others, otherwise it will not only be our words that will never to heaven go.