THE EVIL OF GOSSIP

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Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip.

Richard Steele

 

Good gossip is just what's going on. Bad gossip is stuff that is salacious, mean, and bitchy; the kind most people really enjoy.

Liz Smith

Ah, well, the truth is always one thing, but in a way it's the other thing, the gossip, that counts. It shows where people's hearts lie.

Paul Scott

It is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is wicked to strike a defenseless one. Only the ignorant and narrow-minded gossip, for they speak of persons instead of things.

Lawrence G. Lovasik

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Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.

Will Rogers

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Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip.

Erma Bombeck

Who gossips with you will gossip of you.

Irish Saying

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All parts of the human body get tired eventually -
 except the tongue.

Konrad Adenauer

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He gossips habitually; he lacks the common wisdom to keep still that deadly enemy of man, his own tongue.

Mark Twain

In our appetite for gossip, we tend to gobble down everything before us, only to find, too late, that it is our ideals we have consumed, and we have not been enlarged by the feasts 
but only diminished.

Pico Iyer

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The great man is not he who "takes a city"

or "overthrows a nation,"

but rather "he who subdues his own tongue."

 THE URANTIA BOOK

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Gossip, gossip

Gossip, gossip

I heard it in the night

Words that thoughtless speak

Like vultures swooping down below

On the devil's radio

I hear it through the day

Airwaves gettin' filled

With gossip broadcast to and fro

On the devil's radio

Oh yeah, gossip

Gossip, oh yeah

He's in the clubs and bars

And never turns it down

Talking about what he don't know

On the devil's radio

He's in your TV set

Won't give it a rest

That soul betraying so and so

The devil's radio

Gossip, gossip

Gossip, gossip

(Oh yeah) gossip, (gossip) oh yeah

(Gossip) oh yeah, (oh yeah) gossip

It's white and black like industrial waste

Pollution of the highest degree

You wonder why I don't hang out much

I wonder how you can't see

He's in the films and songs

And on all your magazines

It's everywhere that you may go

The devil's radio

Oh yeah, gossip

Gossip, oh yeah

Runs thick and fast, no one really sees

Quite what bad it can do

As it shapes you into something cold

Like an Eskimo igloo

It's all across our lives

Like a weed it's spread

'till nothing else has space to grow

The devil's radio

Can creep up in the dark

Make us hide behind shades

And buzzing like a dynamo

The devil's radio

(Gossip) oh yeah, (gossip) oh yeah

(Gossip) gossip, (gossip) gossip

Oh yeah, gossip I heard you on the secret wireless

Gossip, oh yeah You know the devil's radio, child

Gossip, gossip

Gossip, gossip
Oh yeah.

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George Harrison
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"GOSSIP, THE DEVIL'S RADIO - DON'T BE A BROADCASTER!"

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From Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans 1:28-32
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And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, gossips, 

Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

Without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
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PSALM 52

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Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?

The steadfast love of God endures all the day.

 Your tongue plots destruction,

like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit.
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 You love evil more than good,

and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah

 You love all words that devour,

O deceitful tongue.

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 But God will break you down forever;

he will snatch and tear you from your tent;

he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah

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The righteous shall see and fear,

and shall laugh at him, saying,

 “See the man who would not make

God his refuge,

but trusted in the abundance of his riches

and sought refuge in his own destruction!”

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 ..

 But I am like a green olive tree

in the house of God.

I trust in the steadfast love of God

forever and ever.

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 I will thank you forever,

because you have done it.

I will wait for your name, for it is good,

in the presence of the godly.

THE PROBLEM WITH MISSIONARIES

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It is no accident that the world's

two largest and most widespread religions

include a missionary imperative.

Unlike faithful Hindus, Jews, Taoists,

and practitioners of Shinto, Christians and

Muslims are expected to carry the Good News

and the Islamic call to faith, respectively,

to the far corners of the world. Although they

disagree on the precise nature of God's revelation

and the paths to the ultimate goal, adherents in

both traditions agree that their faith incorporates

a missionary mandate. Far too often in both

traditions, however, a narrow understanding of

mission has combined with cultural imperialism

and military power in ways that destroyed any

witness to God's love and mercy.
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.Examples of missionary-related abuses abound.

The history of the spread of Christianity and Islam

in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas (for

Christianity) is a checkered one at best.

Pick a continent and study the behavior of

those who came in the name of these religions.

Raw power and conquest sometimes dominated

the process. Conversion by force is often inter-

twined with moving stories of people whose faith

and courage changed them and their communities

in many positive ways. Certain missionaries made

life-changing contributions, making possible

greater opportunities in health care, education,

and the economy, but celebrating the positive

doesn't tell the whole story. When missionary

zeal is informed by absolute truth claims

defining who is "saved" and what is acceptable,

the propagation of religion frequently

includes sinister dimensions.

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The California missions system (1769-1834)

as founded and developed by Father Juipero

Serra exemplifies the problem. Serra's piety,

courage, and commitment to evangelize

Native Americans have been affirmed by

his critics as well as by those who advocated

for his beatification in 1988 (a formal step

toward canonization as a saint in the Roman

Catholic tradition). A professor of theology,

Serra left Spain for the mission field of the

new world in 1749. By the time of his death

in 1782, he had walked some twenty-four

thousand miles through Mexico and California

and established twenty-one Franciscan missions.

However noble his intentions, his methods and

close cooperation with Spanish government

and military officials were cruelly devastating

to the indigenous people. The mission was,

in fact, part of a larger strategy of colonization

and conquest. Serra and his fellow missionaries

traveled to new territory with Spanish military

contingents and apparently understood
themselves as agents of both God
and the civil government.
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Serra and others like him viewed the

native population as savage heathens

who had to be disciplined as children.

Their version of discipline would warrant

state intervention and charges of child

abuse in California today. The Franciscans

were convinced that cultural conversion was

a prerequisite to conversion to Christianity.

With righteous determination, "they went

about the task of dismantling what they

regarded as backward traditional lifeways,

social structures, mores, and values of

Indian peoples." Missionaries destroyed

towns, separated families, instituted slavery

and economic exploitation, applied religious

coercion ruthlessly, and carried out various

types of corporal punishment.
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 George Tinker, a Native American seminary
 professor and pastor to Lutherans and Episcopalians
 in Denver, closely examines Serra and three

other highly respected historical missionary

leaders and concludes that they were naive

and possibly unwitting partners in genocide.

Without question, the California mission is

part of a larger pattern beginning with the

subjugation of Aztecs and other native peoples

in Mexico. Franciscans, Augustinians, and

Dominicans carried the enterprise north

into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and

California.
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The uncritical mixing of religious, political,

military, and economic realms in the missionary

conquests of the Southwest offends contemporary

sensitivities and contradicts the cherished

principle of the separation of church and

state. It is far closer to the military, political,

and religious expansion of Islam in the seventh

and eighth centuries. These and missionary

movements in Asia and Africa reflect another

era and outdated worldviews. In different

ways at different times, Christian and Muslim

missions rested on absolute truth claims -

stated or assumed - that theirs was a superior

culture and religion. In fairness to early

Islamic expansion - across North Africa and

into Spain, through the Fertile Crescent and

across Mesopotamia and Persia into India -

there is little evidence of widespread conversion

at the point of a sword.

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From WHEN RELIGION BECOMES EVIL

by Charles Kimball
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THE PSALM CONCERNING CONGRESS

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Psalm 52

Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?

The steadfast love of God endures all the day.

Your tongue plots destruction,like a sharp razor,

you worker of deceit.

You love evil more than good,

and lying more than speaking what is right.

You love all words that devour,O deceitful tongue.

But God will break you down forever;

he will snatch and tear you from your tent;

he will uproot you from the land of the living.

The righteous shall see and fear,and shall

laugh at him, saying,

“See the man who would not make

God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance

of his riches and sought refuge

in his own destruction!”

But I am like a green olive tree

in the house of God.

I trust in the steadfast love of God

forever and ever. I will thank you forever,

because you have done it.

I will wait for your name,

for it is good, in the presence of the godly.