I have several relatives that insist on sending me every piece of 'Christian' propaganda garbage they can find on the Internet.
And to these loved ones, I want to say:
No, your emails of lies have not convinced me our new President is the anti-Christ.
No, your emails of lies have not convinced me to sign a petition so Jesus won't be portrayed as homosexual in a new movie.
No, I will not forward your cute, non-Scriptural, warm-fuzzy-filled email on to 16 people in the next 8 minutes to prove I love God. No, not even if you include the animated puppies and angels and size 72 pink flashing text.
No, our world will not be turned upside down by the removal of "In God We Trust" from the quarter.
No, you are not doing the world a favor or fulfilling the Great Commission by forwarding these alarmist and mostly false messages to all your AOL contacts.
My usual method of dealing with these stupid yet dangerous annoyances is to reply with a link to Snopes that sheds light on the lie. This doesn't always work.
One family member responded to my clarification by saying, "Oh well, I still forward things that will get someone to talk to God because that is never bad."
So even when you're wrong, you're right? This brings Proverbs 26:5 to my mind.
As for the lies, read Proverbs 12:22. While you're at it, check out Exodus 20:16.
The mindset of sounding the alarm and spreading the word regardless of logic or reason or fact is foreign to me. Christians who partake in and propagate these scams are why nonbelievers are justified when they look at us and think, "I do not want to be like that."
Think about it: are you doing more harm than good by forwarding that email? Proverbs 14:15 says you should at least have a coherent thought about it before passing it on.
A good start to spreading God's Word is to stop spreading substitutes.
So here's a test: I didn't link any of the Scripture I referenced above to the source. Did you check up on me? If you did, you're one of the few.
The delete button should now be your friend.
Go, and send no more.
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I wasn't going to look up those verses, but since you asked, I will.
ReplyDeleteOk, I did. Now I'm one of the few. The proud. The - never mind.
And did you know that Snopes makes up a bunch of urban legends and chain mails in order to ensure they remain in business? It's true - I read it on a website.