Gossip and Slander: Sins Against the Soul

Hieromonk [Archimandrite] Akakios Hagiogregorites

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. 1 (1984), No. 2, pp. 24-28, 37.

 

 

Many clergymen, sociologists, and social psychologists have expressed profound alarm at the deterioration of social and moral values in the United States. An initially positive response by many academics and professionals in the 1960’s to what was then viewed as an age of “reevaluation and creative reassessment,” indeed has now, in the 1980’s, become a gripping sense of the destructive nature of the “me generation” – an entire generation which, in restructuring its values, simply fell to a justification of everything personal.

“I care about me. My wants are primary.” This is the cry of a new American generation. And its narcissistic, egocentric, and selfish message has set the tone for American social and moral values in general. The “Now Generation” has bombarded our society with views and values that are a mockery of Christianity, if not common decency: “Do your thing.” “If it feels good, do it.” “That’s your problem, not mine.” “You do your thing, and I’ll do mine.”

In this atmosphere of self-indulgence and egocentrism, we are now seeing something that is reaching epidemic proportions: the ugly specters of malicious gossip, character assassination, depersonalization, and slander. Our newspapers are full of journalism that only three decades ago would have been considered “yellow journalism.” Television “soap operas” feature “stars” whose roles portray malicious gossips and who engage in duplicitous plots to destroy innocent people of whom they are jealous, or who might know something about them which is compromising. “Lie to your parents,” a line from a popular “punk rock” song advises. And politicians, who used to be shamed for the kinds of tactics that marked the “witch hunt” days of the McCarthy era – when communistic values proliferated in this country as self-serving politicians turned the attention of the public away from the real threat to phantom threats-, now dismiss such tactics, when they are exposed, as “indiscretions” which the public should forgive.

Jealousy is now an understandable human trait, rather than a vulgar and destructive sin. Some years ago, a young woman, non-Orthodox and subsequently tragically killed, came to our monastery to speak with me. She told me that she had broken up the marriage of her best friend. Being intensely jealous of her friend’s marriage and wholly dissatisfied with her own, she claimed to have an illicit affair with her friend’s husband. Though this was absolutely untrue, her friend, on confronting the husband, refused to believe the husband’s defense. The more that he protested his innocence, the more the woman became convinced that he was being defensive and was guilty. The end result was a divorce. The vile woman who had fabricated the affair, while feeling some natural guilt, nonetheless justified herself to me on the grounds that jealousy is a normal and understandable human shortcoming. She had wanted me to support her in this unbelievable rationalization and in her vicious sin. And her story is but one of many like it that I have heard as a Priest!

Jealous competition is also now acceptable. I once confronted a graduate student who was studying with me regarding a certain infraction. He had placed an incorrect chemical formula on the blackboard in the graduate student offices, hoping that his fellow graduate students would copy it, use it, and thus lower the scale on which the students’ qualifying examinations were to be evaluated, giving him an advantage with his own correct rendering of the formula for the neuro-pharmacological agent in question. His response to my outrage was that “all is fair in grades and success.”

We are now seeing the frightful and unbelievable results of a society which tolerates lying, cheating, jealousy, and all of the lower human traits. The psychological effect of allowing such things to be justified is that they become a regular part of human interaction. The “games that people play” become the “vicious battles” which people wage. And as distrust and fear grow among the innocent, even they contribute to this deterioration in human interaction, since they are reticent to say anything. They become the “silent majority,” degenerate into the guilty onlookers, and even sometimes become those “adroit” politicians who, while they do not engage in evil themselves, stand back as “neutral forces.” In such a battle there is, of course, no “neutral” force and these innocents become guilty of self-justification – the very source of malicious rumor and gossip themselves.

In a battle to preserve one's ego and to be always right, always the winner, and always the one satisfied, truth and principle have no place. They are secondary issues, if not issues altogether forgotten. Image, effect, and the perpetuation of “nice guy" reputations and “innocent profiles” necessitate the use of lies and gossip. One must lie about his actual motivations, trying to “look” interested in his fellow man. Those who know our faults must be discredited and depersonalized, so that their possible accusations will have no weight. We must "cover,” hide, and distort the truth. And in the end, we come to hate those who do not participate in our tactics. We then gossip, not out of a defensive posture, but in order to punish, “to get even.” Everything deteriorates into the worst vulgarity.

If all of these various processes were, in fact, open and admitted, the world would not be the lie which the classical Greeks saw it to be. But these things always hide under the guise of elevated values. While the whole of American society, for example, is engaged in an orgy of self-gratification, religious belief and Church attendance are, for the first time in decades, on the rise. College students are supposedly more “conservative” than ever before. Old fashioned values are upheld as wonderful new ways to transform our society. Yet, underlying all of this hyperbolic talk about values is the very moral decay to which we have alluded. The psychological motivations of this generation are so base as to astound the most passive social psychologist; yet, the reported attitudes are increasingly positive. In effect, the whole social realm has fallen to dangerous hypocrisy. That even atheistic observers see this – and sometimes more acutely than those in the “business” of public religion – should awaken us.

Underneath all of this decay, underpinning the transformation of a generation’s psychology, is something spiritual. And that something is quite simple. As one develops the ego, gives it rights, and endows it with “independence,” two negative spiritual forces are evoked: hypocritical spirituality (or spiritual delusion) and deception. As one grows spiritually and begins to find the great and forceful presence of God within the heart of man, he all too often falls to attributing this force to himself, becoming arrogant, self-dependent, and a certain “criterion” of the spiritual. At the same time, this spiritual delusion is always covered by an even hyperbolic dedication to the Church – sometimes even a crusading campaign for Church purity and the highest spiritual standards. This latter “smokescreen.” which is a simple deception, is sometimes even believed by the deluded spiritual man. He can even cover the most vulgar personal sins under the guise of “service to the Church.”

These two processes, spiritual delusion and deception, have their counterparts in society. The spiritually deluded man finds something within himself that empowers him, imagining this ego-related distortion of the spirituality within man to be true spirituality and, in fact, a privilege of the individual. The spiritually deluded society concentrates on the “self,” imagining that the human being has a “right” to pursue his own aims and to develop his own potential. This selfishness is in turn, covered by a “smokescreen.” Just as the spiritually deluded man covers his egocentric spirituality with a hyperbolic dedication to the Church, so a spiritually deluded society will turn to “traditional values” and to some supposed spiritual foundation. And just as the spiritual man covers his personal sins by a “smokescreen,” so society covers its immorality and deterioration by an appeal to high-sounding principles.

Thus it is that we produce the seeming Saint who is capable of things unthinkable even to those who are not religious. And so it is that we have the phenomenon of an America returning to “traditional” values at a time when social and moral values are at an all-time low.

We must be attuned to gossip and slander. We must never judge any person until we have investigated every matter. In an atmosphere of social and spiritual “theatre,’’ where impressions are designed to hide the truth, those who seem – and are declared – most evil may be the most sincere. And those who are considered good and even Saintly may be something quite distant from either trait.

Let me cite a few examples of how this situation directly affects the Church. In the last century, a very pious and holy spiritual Father fell into spiritual delusion. He developed clairvoyant abilities and began to present himself as a Saint. A pious layman found out, however that the man was not only deluded, but that he had fallen to an unspeakable sin. The layman faced the spiritual Father and said, “How is it that you can reconcile these two things?” The Father became enraged. He then began a campaign of slander against the layman, telling his followers that the layman himself was suffering from spiritual delusion, was malicious, and had fallen to a terrible sin (the very sin of which the Father was guilty and the layman innocent). The renowned Father’s followers, taken in by his spiritual theatre, began to abuse the layman. They found every reason to hate him. And even they began to spread falsehoods about him. The spiritual Father eventually went insane. The layman was never vindicated on earth. His reward spiritually, however, must have been great.

This story from the last century, when such things were rare and astonishing, could be a virtual model for what is happening in the Church today.

Yet another example bears repeating, this told to me by an older Priest who was counselling a spiritual son who had broken the fidelity of his marriage bonds. It seems that the spiritual son, who presented himself to all others as a man of deep religious sensitivity, had been exposed as an adulterer by the woman with whom he had committed the indiscretion. Having silenced him in a most duplicitous way, he set about to accuse his spiritual Father of relating his confession to others. His wife, who had known of his infidelity and had patiently endured it, also became the object of his slander, his ultimate accusation being that his wife and spiritual Father were involved in a sinful relationship. So clouded was the atmosphere with the man's lies and with his dramatic protestations that he had become the victim of a manipulative and evil spiritual Father, that the spiritual Father and the wife became the objects of public rebuke, rather than the adulterer. The spiritual Father, in fact, was forced to leave his parish, so convincing had the slanderer’s accusations been. The Priest had simply refused to engage in such theatre and his words sounded empty. He was finally vindicated, however, and returned to his parish.

Finally, one must realize that the Evil One himself rejoices when worthy believers and worthy clergymen are attacked. And with the forces that belong to him – forces which grow and prosper wherever there are egotism, selfishness, and envy – he plants hatred for the innocent everywhere. So it is that, when the innocent are being condemned, even those who are not evil and malicious will be drawn into factions and cliques which make these innocent people the objects of their hatred. The Evil one thus discourages the innocent, hides their witness, and leads other innocent people into malicious sin. No better example of this exists than the horror of the Communist Revolution in Russia, when, in the name of destroying those who had supposedly exploited them, many peasants abandoned their religious training and turned to murder and pillaging. And whom did they attack -as proof of the demonic source of their frenzy? Pious and innocent fellow peasants, Godly clergymen, and many of the aristocrats and noblemen who had far greater sympathy for them than their communist masters.

Yet another example comes to mind. A very holy Bishop, honored for his dedication to the Church and openly called by many “saintly,” was recently the object of an attack in the press (!) of such slanderous nature that one is simply astounded at the gall of the newspaper in writing such things. The reporter, writing under various pseudonyms, was relentless, even to the point of seeing this holy man very seriously ill from his worry and upset at such slander being printed. With absolute demonic hatred, the reporter showed no remorse. Nor could he explain his hatred of this Bishop. Many pious people, outraged at this injustice and not blinded by the immorality of “neutrality,” spoke out and put these shameful reports to rest. In the end, it proved to be the case that this demonic reporter had simply fabricated his facts and had purposely distorted incidents to create a negative picture of his victim. Thus the Evil One succeeded in maligning a holy man, in bringing a needed Churchman near physical collapse, and in destroying the soul of a reporter who simply succumbed to hatred and jealousy.

In our days, we must be very careful. What the ego likes is probably bad for the soul. What seems true, and is presented dramatically as such, is probably not. What is painful is usually more constructive than that which is easy. If we share our views in a sense of “fellowship” with others and these views contain any malice or gossip, our fellowship is more than likely sinful. If we see these things, realize that we. too, can be maligners and liars without knowing it, serving the ends of the Evil One, and humbly ask Christ to guide us, we may overcome what is becoming the very tool of Anti-Christ in modem times: gossip and malicious slander. These are emblazoned on his banner.

And do not be naive! Be as gentle as the dove, but as wise as the serpent. Do not let supposed innocence and holiness ever mislead you. The Faith demands self-discipline and a judgment of oneself before all else and all others. Such a system is death to the Evil One and his ways.