Lies, Gossip, Slander, and Calumny
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it… the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie…”
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over…”
It may appear strange to begin an article on a Christian website with two quotes by one of the most evil men to have lived in history. Josef Goebbels was Hitler’s Propaganda Minister!
Nonetheless, this very famous quote is quite appropriate to the situation that CTMI finds itself in with ‘Concerned Parents Group’ who have continued to attack CTMI, its leadership – Miki Hardy and Basil O’ Connell-Jones in particular – by maliciously giving credence to any story that paints CTMI in a bad light, no matter how implausible.
From my perspective, as a concerned parent myself, I can see that it is very easy to sow seeds of doubt and fear into the minds of parents and other people who, with a bit of clear thinking, would probably pooh-pooh most of the claims that this group is advancing.
However, it is here that the analogy with Hitler’s henchman comes into play. A lie is, or lies are, repeated enough times using the vehicle of the Internet until they become ‘fact’ and ‘truth’ in the mind of the credulous. Add to this mixture, the bringing together of a motley crew of dissatisfied, disappointed, and/or genuinely hurt former church members to air, to vent, and to repeat their complaints. Soon, what is left is a deadly and poisonous cocktail of gossip, tittle-tattle, exaggeration, fabrication, insinuation, and innuendo, which can develop into nothing else except slander and calumny.
People have drawn conclusions based on minor incidents, or bits of conversation. These lies and exaggerations have then been perpetuated by the veneer of barely credible experts who, it would appear to me, are more interested in selling their services or their book than anything else. One only has to read a John Grisham novel to know that such ‘experts’ are available today in any field of human endeavour to give their opinion about events that they were not present at; people they’ve never met; circumstances on which they have only heard one side’s point of view. Strangely, their “expert opinion” will always side with the party paying them!
The result is that for this group of people, CTMI has become an organisation that “must be stopped”. The reality is that most of their attempts to convince any right thinking person or organisation have had very little impact. There is evidently a core group of likeminded individuals who will believe just about anything about CTMI, no matter how far from the truth these accusations are.
I recall many years ago, as a new Christian who devoured the Word, reading something about how the original Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible defined the word ‘gossip’. It was something to the effect that ‘gossip’ was not only repeating bad things about people that were true; but that it had a much deeper meaning. Which is why it displeases God so much: gossip also implies passing on or repeating anything that makes a person look bad in they eyes of listener. Whether the information is true or not makes no difference whatsoever… By that standard, most of us really need to take a deep soul-searching look at the motivations of our hearts every time we open our mouths!
I hope at the some point to be able to write briefly on some of these baseless accusations, which have sadly become facts in the mind of a few persons.
As for CTMI itself, and its leadership, they seem very serene, at peace, to continue to serve the Lord, despite all this persecution. What never ceases to amaze me is that every week in all the CTMI Partner Churches, hundreds of people are gathering to pray for these same accusers. Judge for yourself whose actions God is more pleased with…
The (Un)Concerned Parent
Posted: May 20th, 2010 under The (Un)Concerned Parent.