Written by Thomas D. Hawkes |
Monday, May 16, 2022
Slander is a powerful evil. We should avoid slander, either speaking or hearing it. Our calling, far from slander, is rather to speak the truth in love. “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ” (Eph. 4:15). To lead us away from slander we need only to follow Christ’s love and forgiveness for us, to let us love and forgive one another, with true tenderness.

Read Part 1 and Part 2
First, how should we respond when we are tempted to hear slander?

Check your heart. Remember that our desire to hear slander often arises from the desire to justify ourselves by seeing others as less than we are, therefore, we should be cautious when hearing any criticism of another.
Beware of “victims.” Recognize that playing the victim is a powerful tool that the slanderer may use to court our sympathy. A person may speak of how they have been hurt. We may sincerely want to be helpful, so we listen to what a slanderer describes as the pain the object of their slander has, in their mind, caused them. It is good to recall the warning. “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him” (Prov. 18:17). Too often we are ready to assume a slander is true when the slanderer plays the victim.
Recall the biblical warnings against slander. “Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy” (Ps. 101:5). Instead of hearing slander, we should recall the prohibitions against slander and proceed with caution. Ask yourself: “Is this slander that I am hearing? Does it hurt the person’s reputation? Do I know or suspect it to be untrue?” Too often today under the guise of caring for others, we listen to slander when we should be sending the slanderer packing. We have absolutely no duty to hear slander. No duty to sympathize with slander. No duty to repeat slander.
Ask this single question. Indeed, we should develop a particularly Christian reflex when someone is bringing us a bad report. We should ask the question: “Have you spoken to them about your issues with them?” Wait for the reply and if the answer is no, or some self-justification happens, then caution the person against slandering others. Think of the pain and conflicts in churches that could be stopped if we all were unwilling to receive slander!

Second, how should we proceed when we are tempted to slander another?

Examine your own heart. Again, we do well to examine our own hearts. “Where does my bitterness spring from? Does my grudge against them truly arise from a biblical sin they have committed, or just something I do not prefer?” Continue the self-examination. “Is there unforgiveness in my heart? A grudge I want to settle? Is it true what I want to say? Is it helpful? Does it build up or tear down?” Reread the prohibitions against slander and take your heart to God repenting of the desire to tear another down. Perhaps you are bitter just because the person you want to slander is your better?
Remember the danger of being a slanderer. Let us remember the destructive power of slander to the slanderer. While slander may cost the target in the eyes of the world, we are warned that it will defile the soul of those who slander (Matt. 15:19–20). It is no sin to be slandered. It is a sin, destructive to our own lives, to slander.
Recall the evil of slandering others. Would you become an accuser of the brethren with Satan (Rev. 12:10)? Then slander. Would you commit murder (1 John 3:15)? Then slander. Would you curse the one whom God has blessed (Jam. 3:9)? Then slander.
Do not slander! Whatever the source of your desire to slander, do not proceed with your desire. “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:31–32). Instead of your intended slander, be kind and forgiving. “Bless and do not curse” (Rom. 12:14).

Finally, how should we respond when we are slandered?

Expect to be slandered. If our Lord and Master Jesus Christ was slandered, then we who would walk in his ways should expect to be slandered as well. Those who lead God’s people are particularly subject to attack. Korah slandered Moses, falsely accusing him of pride (Num. 16:3). Absalom slandered his own father, David, slyly accusing him of being unjust (2 Sam. 15:4). Paul was constantly subject to slander, even from the very churches he founded: “Through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true” (2 Cor. 6:8). Every Christian can expect that they will be attacked (2 Tim. 3:12).
Endure slander, do not return it. We are tempted to fire back at those who slander us. “Oh, yeah, well you’re a….” But we look to Jesus both as our model and our strength. “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return” (1 Pet. 2:23). Rather than cursing those who curse us we are to bless them, as Paul had learned. “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat” (1 Cor. 4:12–13).
Rejoice knowing that the Lord will reward you for any abuse you suffer in this life. One of the highest levels of reward Jesus promised to his people was to those who were persecuted for obeying him. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11–12). Being slandered is a form of persecution. Count yourself blessed to be persecuted, the day comes when Jesus will reward you for your pains.
Trust the Lord to eventually vindicate you. His vindication may not come quickly, it may take years, it may not come until heaven, but look to him to vindicate by his own might, rather than desperately trying to vindicate yourself. “For the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants” (Ps. 135:14). While the Larger Catechism (Question 144) asserts our duty to preserve the “good name” of our neighbor and ourselves, our primary effort to preserve our name should be crying out to our Father. “Vindicate me, O LORD, my God, according to your righteousness, and let them not rejoice over me!” (Ps. 35:24). When sinned against we work to respond without sin, keeping our consciences clear, looking to the Lord for help. “Having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame” (1 Pet. 3:16).
Trust God to use the slander against you to bless you. God will use the slander to grow you and to lead you to the future he desires for you. While extremely painful, it does not actually harm your soul to be slandered. Indeed, God may well use it to form and humble us, convincing us to turn to him and depend on him more deeply. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (Jam. 1:2–4). The trial of slander, intended to destroy you, will instead perfect you! The assault your persecutors launch upon you cannot prevent, but rather, will contribute to, God’s fulling his purposes in your life. “The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me” (Ps. 138:8). Their lies do not determine your future, God’s truth does. Their hatred does not control your destiny, God’s love does.

Remember Joseph who faithfully avoided the amorous advances of Potiphar’s wife, and was slandered by her into prison, for years. Yet precisely from there, the Lord fulfilled his purpose for Joseph’s life . . . perfectly. Joseph, looking back at all the evil done to him, realized this foundational truth: The evil done to us, will be used by God for us, to bless us. This he proclaimed to his brothers who had sold him into slavery many years earlier. “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20).
Slander is a powerful evil. We should avoid slander, either speaking or hearing it. Our calling, far from slander, is rather to speak the truth in love. “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ” (Eph. 4:15). To lead us away from slander we need only to follow Christ’s love and forgiveness for us, to let us love and forgive one another, with true tenderness. “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:31-32).
Dr. Thomas D. Hawkes is a Minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and serves a Director of Church Planting for the ARP Florida Presbytery, and as Lead Pastor of Christ ARP Mission in Fernandina Beach, Fla.
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The four-decade effort by the secular left to undermine the integrity of our elections and constitutional order is nothing less than an attempt to remove the biblical foundations of our government and culture in order to create a centralized, tyrannical government untethered from God which will be a terror to good conduct rather than bad (Romans 13).

When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God is with you.—Deuteronomy 20:1
Christians’ ability to speak and live out the Word of God is under assault from the secular, progressive left. They seek to remove any trace of God or His people from the culture.
The ongoing assault against President Trump is part of this. In order to understand why this is the case–and why Christians should be concerned, let us take a look at what the left has done to Trump in light of attacks on other Republican presidents before him.
The week before the raid on Trump’s home, George Parry published an article in the American Spectator, “The Democrats’ Looming Trial and Conviction of Donald Trump.” In it, he wrote:
“We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding January 6, for any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable,” said Garland.
Who’s he kidding? Garland made it sound as if there is a chance that Trump might not be arrested and prosecuted. But, to anyone who has been paying attention, the intention of the Democrat-controlled federal government has always been and remains to be the legalized destruction of Donald Trump. It is, in fact, the whole purpose behind the illegally constituted Jan. 6 committee’s Soviet–style show trial, its contempt citations of Trump administration officials, and the follow-up supporting criminal cases by the FBI and Justice Department.
The Soviet–style show trial and previous efforts to remove Trump from office come from the same playbook Democrats have been using against Republicans for decades. It started at least as far back as Watergate, when Democrats took illegal activities by some Nixon aides–who acted without Nixon’s knowledge–and managed to parley that into overturning the results of a presidential election in which Nixon won 97% of the electoral vote. They twisted and distorted the evidence so badly that even Nixon thought that he had engaged in a coverup. But he had not. Nixon had his faults, but he broke no laws and committed no high crimes or misdemeanors. Yet Nixon was forced to leave, and progressives had the run of the federal government for the next six years.
The Democrats took this route twice with President Reagan. First, it was the October Surprise conspiracy theory, where Democrats concocted a story that vice presidential candidate George Bush travelled to Paris in October on a U.S. government SR-71 spy plane to convince the Iranians not to release their American hostages captured during the attack on the American Embassy until after the November 1980 presidential election. Congress finally rejected the theory–in 1992.
Next were the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings, based on largely unconstitutional attempts by Congress to control the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy. These hearings failed to overturn the 1984 Reagan landslide over Walter Mondale, but hamstrung his final two years in office and were perfectly timed to affect Vice President Bush’s prospects for being elected president.
After Bush overcame Iran-Contra and was elected, the October Surprise hoax was revived. It received substantial coverage in the mainstream press, to the point that a January 1992 poll showed 55 percent of Americans believed the allegations. Bush created many of his own problems, especially lying to the American people when he promised, “Read my lips. No new taxes” during his 1988 campaign, but the propagation of the hoax likely had an effect on his loss to Bill Clinton in the 1992 election.
Bush’s son George W. also was the target of Democrats seeking to overturn presidential election results. This time, it was U.S. Rep Dennis Kucinich, joined by 11 cosponsors, who filed articles of impeachment because of what they claimed were lies regarding weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for America’s invasion of Iraq. I do not think we should have invaded Iraq, but neither do I believe that Bush manufactured false evidence to push us into another war. Yet Democrats still tried to overturn his election through the impeachment process. As well as hamstring his administration through the bogus Valerie Plame Wilson investigation.
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In the movie Gaslight, the lights were flickering, and she knew it. But her husband attempted to tell her that her senses could not be trusted. We must help the “victims” understand that what they see, hear, touch, and smell can be trusted because that is how God designed them to experience the world.

In July 2021 I wrote an article on gaslighting that made the following three points:

Definition of gaslighting: “Gaslighting,” biblically speaking, is the deception by self-lovers who use eloquent and persuasive speech to destroy the emotional and spiritual stability of their victims. The self-lover wants to control and often hide their own sinful behavior.
Value of the term: Biblical counselors may choose to use the term as a subheading of the biblical term deception to highlight the particularly wicked form that this deception takes.
Impact on a person’s life: Gaslit sufferers assume that events and actions are their fault, refuse to make decisions, exhibit unwillingness to trust their senses, lie to avoid conflict, and look for a trustworthy person to tell them what to do.

In the months since that article came out, I have continued to study and think about the subject. I concluded that my article focused almost exclusively on what I now term “active gaslighting.” I also believe that passive gaslighting is also possible. I will write another article explaining this difference. However, I believe that successful gaslighting, whether done actively or passively, tends to produce similar result. This article presents an initial explanation of how to help.
Before I get started, I believe every person must be cared for as an individual. Even if commonalities exist between counselees, commonality is not sameness. The Bible encourages us to listen (Prov. 18:13; James 1:19) and respond to the situation accordingly. People are dynamic and that demands an ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
It is also important to remember that my list below is only attempting to address the gaslighting itself. The needs of the active gaslit victim may include issues not relevant to the passive victim and vise-a-versa. In addition, there may be other life factors that require counsel.
Acknowledge That Life Is Hard
Victims may seem confusing, immature, even childish to those who have never experienced treatment like this. Children who were biblically raised (cf. Eph 6:4; Deut 6:5-9, etc.) and taught biblical courage must listen to their counselee’s experience. The constant bombardment of deception, manipulation, and cruelty should lead us to compassion.
Feeling compassion is not enough. We must communicate it. We must find words to express our compassion for them and for their experience. Paul often wrote about other’s suffering. The Psalms express grief as does Job and Lamentations. Building a relationship where honesty and ministry can flourish requires a little “climbing in the casket.”
This is especially true of active gaslighting victims because the perpetrators are like Romans 16:18 says, For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.
Even when the gaslighting was unintentional (i.e., passive) it does not change the reality that the person experiences many of the same symptoms. It is hard to live in a world where nothing seems clear or makes sense.
Remember That Gaslit Victims Struggle with Reality
When either counseling or supervising someone counseling these persons, we must constantly remind ourselves that they struggle with reality. There are different rules. When someone tried to tell me that I did not see something I really saw (I watched him run for a touchdown), something I read (a story about hurting people), or something I heard I did not find their comments confusing – I found them irritating. Those were my rules.
Victims play with different rules. They have learned that our world is broken and confusing. They have learned that trust is dangerous. Gaslit victims confuse what the rest of us would take for granted.
Persevering is an important concept. Gaslit people might make it hard to counsel. They might question your understanding of the Bible, they might question your application, and they might look to others for confirmation. It is not because they are rebellious, it is part of how they function. Rather than be angry at them, recognize that they need more help than the average person.
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