When You MoveOn The Swift Boat
Posted by:
Bible Blogger on
December 13, 2006 at
4:50PM EST
I'm sure you're as tired of the blind partisan trainwreck that is our
American political system these days. You really don't know who you
can trust or depend on because there's always the nagging doubt the
person talking is only giving about 85% of the truth. Just enough they
can get all indignant if you claim they're lying while at the same time
knowing they were leaving out all the info that wouldn't back their
claims.
There's a term for it now depending on which side of the
political spectrum you call home..."swift boating" if you're on the
left or "move on-ing" if you're on the right. (Based on the Swift Boat
Veterans who were critical of John Kerry and moveon.org which was
critical of President Bush.) No matter which term you want to apply to
the situations it still involves someone being the subject of a public
smear with less than completely truthful information or accusations
that have no way of being proven in any direction.
What bothers
me is it seems we're progressing to a point in society where "swift
boating/move on-ing" is becoming something that's almost acceptable to
even Christians. It's gossip in it's purest and simplest forms but
Christians want to lap it up like candy and then lash out when
someone's trying to pull those tactics on you.
Look at this...1 Peter 2:15 (NIV):
"For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men."
When
I read a verse like that it stings me because my nature, along with
many of you, is to stand up and confront someone who's trying to swift
boat you. You want to say "hey, this isn't the whole truth" and lay
everything out on the table. You think if you do this that most
rational people are going to look at all the evidence and then hold up
for scorn or rebuke the person who was trying to be deceitful.
You
what most likely happens? It becomes a case of "he said/she said" and
people either think both sides are spinning the truth or they just walk
away disgusted by the whole affair. Most of the time you'll end up
with a more negative impression on that person that you would have
based on the swift boating of the false witness.
In my view
the best way to handle someone like this is to just ignore them and
continue with your life and relationships as if they're not there. If
you're doing good and working in life a Christ calls one of two things
will happen...they'll either realize you're not going to give into
their goading of you and move onto their next target of slander or
they'll continue to rage against you. If the first happens, it's good
for you although bad for whoever they fixate upon next. If the second
happens, most reasonable people will start to see through the ranting
and wonder why this person seems so set on trying to destroy someone
else. The black mark won't be placed on you. That person will look
like the ignorant fool described in Scripture.
That's not to say
some people won't believe what was said as being the truth. Some will
take your silence to mean it must be the truth or you'd go after the
person who said it. You can't change the minds of those people and
very likely they wouldn't have believed your defense anyway...they
would have been at the front of the line to say if you were fighting
too hard if you had nothing to hide! So don't sweat those people
either.
Yeah, I know it's not fun when someone seems to be
getting their enjoyment out of trying to slander you. It can be really
hard to hear someone saying things that are lies or reading e-mails
someone has written where they're obviously distorting things to fit
their own twisted vendetta. Just remember our God is bigger and that
He will provide justice in the end. The foolish mockers will have to
answer to Him.
