As believers we are not only told not to bear false witness, but also not to gossip or be slanderous, etc. I work with college students for a living and have been asked, “What’s the difference between ‘venting’ and ‘gossiping’?” I have seen students, my peers and myself (if I’m honest), take part in venting about their feelings toward another person or situation (typically with a trusted friend or two as the recipient of the conversation). Sometimes this is done “objectively”, that is, with the goal of relaying back the situation at hand, but I don’t think it always happens this way.

In sum, (how) can we effectively vent or relay a particular situation to our friends or spouse or co-workers without gossiping or being slanderous? Any thoughts on all of this?

“The old people can be a nuisance sometimes, but really they are not so bad.”
“Some of them smell like moth balls and need to lose the purple hair die…”
“It does appear to be a waste of time to me every now and then. The older people always seem to want prayer for their brother’s nephew’s cousin’s dog that broke its leg.”

Despite these weird little comments you made, I see you love your church and its elder members dearly. That’s wonderful, but what did you see in Joe’s post about making sure our criticism of others never becomes inaccurate or slanderous that made you post such a long response that offered nothing to the topic at hand?

Great post. I am a student in a Seminary right now. I have a teacher who loves telling stories about how awful the liberal theologians in our church are. He tells about how they destroy people’s faith in the Bible and God, etc. Since I tend to be more on the “liberal” side (whatever that means), it eats away at me because it makes me feel belittled and like I am less of a Christian. I know it’s not true but when you hear it everyday, it tends to wear on you.

At the same time, I always have to remind myself that I can’t play the same game. I can be just as dogmatic and insensitive in talking about extremely conservative positions.

The real issue is control. We all want to control others and have people agree with us and follow our way of thinking. I have to remind myself that if everyone thought and acted like me, this world probably would not be very enjoyable. Embracing diversity and realizing that we don’t have to control everybody is really the key.

I had never thought about these concepts in light of the Ninth Commandment. Great insight that I will keep with me for life.

Don Miller was in Grand Rapids, MI recently and while he can find humor in his opponents’ slander of his character, you can tell it hurts him, too. If Don is liberal, then the Pope is protestant.

Brad,

The fact that you can’t spell “McCoy” shows your utter ignorance of all things “emerging.” LOL That was a joke bro. (Oh, and “bro” is what we cool people say when we mean “brother.”)

It sounds like the heart of your point is respect. Because of some old “war” I suppose we are forced to just take erroneous, uncharitable, and unbiblical judgments of people like Miller? Must we only speak about Coppengers former wars and glory days? Or can we actually just speak directly about the topic he chose to address?

I’ll be honest. There’s one guy who has shoes I am unworthy to untie, and they aren’t the Right Reverend Coppenger. I agree about respecting our elders, but I don’t see anything disrespectful about Brethren Thorn’s post.

The saddest thing is, you wrote a comment much longer than Joe’s post, and I’m not sure you engaged a single point he made.