Dirty Laundry
By Audrey Stallsmith
I recently was annoyed when I saw readers on an online forum complaining about a writer’s “dishonesty” because she left a few things out of her memoirs, such as her husband’s unfaithfulness and her son’s alcoholism. Since when is it a requirement that writers air all their dirty laundry in public?
In fact, I consider her reticence a good thing since it might well have been due to Christian charity rather than an attempt to cover things up. If we love our family members, after all, we don’t want them to be hurt by what we write—no matter how much they might deserve it!
Unfortunately, although we may make exceptions for our family and friends, a 1980’s song by Don Henley called "Dirty Laundry" details how much people like to kick others when they are down—or to bring them down. Back then, degrading disclosures came via the tabloids, but the tendency seems to have been exacerbated by the Internet which has too many of us addicted to negative news of any sort.
I can’t see that the current propensity for trying to dig up dirt on everybody else has made us healthier psychologically. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case. Abusive behavior should, of course, be exposed so no one else will be hurt. And it’s probably also best to know the worst about our politicians before they get into office.
But the current tendency to pull other public figures or their family members down just to prove that they are no better than the rest of us definitely isn’t Christian. And our propensity for gossip seems aimed at proving that our neighbors are no better than ourselves either.
We should avoid such hearsay and not only because it often isn’t true. As Paul pointed out, a Christian needs to “be humble, thinking of others as better” than him or herself. (Phillipians 2:3 LB).
That makes the world a much more exciting place for us because we have so much to live up to. As G. K. Chesterton states in Orthodoxy “Alice must grow small if she is to be Alice in Wonderland.”
We also should avoid accepting everything we read online since so much of it is false too. In fact, now that I come to think of it, how can I know for sure that the aforementioned writer’s husband was unfaithful or her son an alcoholic? Just saying that “everybody knows” something doesn’t prove it is so. And she no longer is around to defend herself or her family.
And it is not, of course, her fault if those things were true. The Old Testament makes very clear how often godly people produce children who are far from following their parents’ example. And, although the Bible allows a woman to divorce an unfaithful husband, it doesn’t require her to do so.
So, we need to strike a balance. First, we should realize that no human except Christ ever has been perfect, which is why we should never base our faith on anybody else’s faith. Second, we should believe the best of everyone else unless we are proved wrong. And if we ever feel gleeful about somebody else’s downfall, we should start checking our spiritual temperature, because we obviously are siding with Satan.
In extreme cases, it may be our obligation to intervene instead. I recently watched a disturbing true crime show where the killers were both Sunday School teachers who had been carrying on a blatant affair which they didn’t even attempt to hide. Eventually, like Old Testament David, they would proceed from adultery to murder of the woman’s husband.
I couldn’t help but wonder whether their fellow church members had made any attempt to stop this downhill slide before the couple ended up on death row. The two should have at least been removed from their positions as Sunday School teachers, since they were teaching their students by their actions that it was okay to disregard God’s law.
So, their conduct should have been considered alarming rather than titillating. No matter what defense lawyers may say, anybody who has watched many true crime shows eventually has to conclude that people who commit adultery are more likely to commit more violent sins before they are through.
I suspect that our enjoyment of gossip sometimes indicates that we don’t take sin with its endangerment of souls seriously enough these days, when all defiance of God tends to lead to worse defiance. Therefore, we need to try to pull people back from that slippery slope as often as we can, whether through persuasion or prayer, remembering how easy it would be for us to slide into the pit ourselves.
Jude warns us that we “should save some by snatching them as from the very flames of hell itself. . .but be careful that you yourselves aren’t pulled along into their sins.” After all, once we have been rescued from the pit ourselves by the gospel which means "good news," we should be more interested in helping pull others out than in kicking them for their weakness.