DECALOGUE NOT OCTOLOGUE
Bear with me in this first paragraph so that I can make some points about an old commandment from God, one we all learned as children from our parents.
On Friday (Nov. 1) I received several emails from a priest (?) who has written several slanderous "hit pieces" about me over the years on his blog, all of them deliberately misrepresenting me and demonstrating something of an obsession that makes me wonder of I need to hire security - not that I could afford it. They were about a comment that I never posted on Facebook that used an impolite (to say the least) word, apparently on a Facebook page of yet a third clergyman whom I have never met and frankly, because he violates the unwritten but generally understood ethical norm of not trying to be both a priest and a publicly known political pundit, hope never to meet (I do not approve of clergy appearing at political rallies to endorse candidates, especially a rally that included some of the most vile and slanderous hate speech ever to shock the nation for a second time since 1939 at Madison Square Garden. It is a shame that it has played host to such a scandalous spectacle now twice in our history). In the emails sent to me on Friday, was included a screenshot of the comment with the obscene word, and it looked exactly as if it had been posted from my Facebook account. He also mentioned "other [comments presumably]" which bothered me. Well, it is an old trick to create a fake Facebook account using someone's name and picture. This method has been used, as we all know, by people inviting us to "friend" people who are already on our "friends" lists, I suppose for some purpose to do with hacking. However, the priest (?) who was sending me the emailed screenshot has been blocked from seeing anything I post on Facebook since February of 2023. In other words, the fact that he was able to see it is only because I did not post it; it did not come from my account: Everything I post there is hidden from him because I had already blocked him.
THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOR.
For some reason that I cannot explain, among us Continuing Anglicans it has been forgotten that we should "Keep holy the Sabbath Day," that is, for us, the Lord's Day (shifted from the seventh to the "eighth" or first day because of Christ's resurrection beginning the new creation), and that it is still a sin to bear false witness against thy neighbor. We seem still to acknowledge the other commandments from the twentieth chapter of Exodus; but we have effectively turned the Decalogue into an Octologue. And, in a political year it seems that some of us have decided that we can serve God by slandering the "right people," you know, those unworthy ones who deserve to be slandered. Quite frankly, Saint Paul made it very clear that it is impossible to serve God by telling lies.
A few weeks ago I posted this:
Today someone spouted the same slanders about Dr. Anthony Fauci that caused him and his family to receive violent death threats. People who are quick to believe and repeat the slander that all conspiracy theories consist of are so corrupted by hate that believing and repeating those lies acts on them like a narcotic. They have lost the ability to see people as persons instead of as objects. It does not bother them that they have no reliable evidence because they care only about getting “high” on their hostility to the point where it means nothing to them that the slanders are not true. Addiction to slanderous conspiracy theories is very much like addiction to pornography.
Some of you have spread those slanders about Dr. Fauci. Shame on you. You heard it on YouTube; it fits the political bias that you favor, and based on that alone you have decided to believe it, you have become emotionally attached to it, and you have shamelessly spread it. But none of it is the truth. More recently, some of you have repeated the slanders propagated by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance against the Haitian immigrants to who live in Springfield, Ohio. What those two politicians have said is every bit as much of a lie as when some Leftwing person accuses us of being pro-life because we "Want to control a woman's body." No matter which side is doing telling the lies, lies are lies, slander is slander, and it is all covered in the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." And when it is your party and your favorite politician, you are still not allowed to spread their lies.
YOU CANNOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST NEIGHBOR, AND STILL EFFECTIVELY BEAR TRUE WITNESS FOR JESUS CHRIST AND HIS GOSPEL.
CHOOSE THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE.
“If ye love Me keep My commandments.” -Jesus Christ (John 14:15)
Regarding slander against entire groups (e.g. legal immigrants from Haiti in Springfield, Ohio), or spreading slanderous and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories (and “that guy on YouTube” is NOT verification), and so much other careless parroting, this still applies today. Unless you have researched it by credible means, and unless you absolutely know for a fact that your derogatory report is true, you are committing the sin of bearing “false witness against thy neighbor.” Come on folks! This is basic stuff that we teach every child in Confirmation class. But, often, children will learn more from adult behavior than from what we teach them. And then there’s the credibility of our witness as a church, and how history will treat our reputation. Adultery, murder, theft, and bearing false witness, etc., are all serious sins. “Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips.” Psalm 141:3
