Fear Not: What does virtual rumor-mongering say about Christians?
Thanks to the Internet, some gullible American Christians can engage in one of their favorite hobbies -- digging up the metaphorical corpse of Madalyn Murray O’Hair and rhetorically flogging it -- more easily than ever before.
Even though the famous atheist’s body was discovered in 1998 and positively identified in Texas -- and even though she apparently has been dead since she disappeared in 1995 -- patently false rumors about her alleged anti-Christian campaigns continue to spread. Credulous Christians who once forwarded these kinds of rumors in mimeographed chain letters or spread them on talk radio now can broadcast them around the world with the mere click of a mouse.
And, of course, O’Hair is not alone in the annals of perceived enemies of Christ about whom some Christians will spread the most ridiculous stories, not bothering to do the merest hint of fact-checking on them.
From the old Procter & Gamble Satanism libel to tales of more recent vintage about President Obama’s faith and citizenship, Internet-fueled rumors seem to run rampant. And, frighteningly, Christians seem at the very least to be as susceptible as the population at large to the habit of spreading false stories.
So, why are Christians so willing to believe unsubstantiated rumors? And more troubling, why are Christians, who should hold the highest standards of truth-telling, so eager to spread such rumors -- and even downright libels?
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The advent of the Internet only made the rumors easier to spread and harder to correct.
Rumors about what people love to hate
Rumors like the ones tied to O’Hair become more powerful when they tap into the hostility and distrust toward government that is widespread among conservative Christians. It’s easy for the average evangelical to believe any rumor that fits this larger political paradigm.
Factor in a contentious presidential election and the stakes go even higher. During the 2000 campaign -- the first in the age of widespread Internet access -- dutiful Christian culture-warriors worked overtime.
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Things only got worse in the 2008 election. With one candidate deeply distrusted by the Religious Right having a background unlike any presidential contender before him -- a nominally Muslim father from Kenya, a freethinking American mother who raised him in the United States and, for a time, in Indonesia -- the rumor mills worked overtime.
Many of those e-mails seemed marketed directly to fearful Christians. One frequently forwarded message -- also debunked by Snopes -- identifies Barack Obama as the son of a black Muslim from Kenya and a white atheist from Kansas.
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Some Christians are so willing to believe rumors that reflect well on their heroes and poorly on their opponents that they abandon even a modest concern for the veracity of the rumors. Yet the Bible clearly prohibits “bearing false witness” and spreading rumors and gossip. Perhaps Christians who spread such rumors think they serve a greater purpose, as if the end justifies the means, some ethicists speculate.
The real truth
Ethicist Tillman called on Christians to examine their biases and prejudices, which he described as “tough exercise,” because it forces Christians to explore the influences that shaped them.
Gullibility may grow out of fear and anxiety, he added. And that directly relates to what people believe.
“I suggest to my students, ‘Tell me something about your fears, and I will tell you something of your theology,’” Tillman said. “Dealing with our fears -- an action usually dismissed or ignored -- may be one of the keys to understanding just which e-mails we forward and those we don’t.”
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The key to confronting such bad habits among Christians is proper spiritual formation on the ethics of truth-telling, gossip and rumor-spreading, experts said.
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“If we are gullible, we need some help to sort out the nonsense we should question from the truth that we should spread.... If we are fearful and envious, just too quick to gossip or criticize, we need that deep love that calms our fears and removes the need to impress others. That love comes from God through Christ, but the Holy Spirit often communicates it to us through our good spiritual friends.”
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“In general, we need to help Christians act like Christians in public life and not just in private life, and not to get sucked into the polarization, partisan idolatry and demonization so common now in media and government,” Gushee said.
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