Slander

Now here's an interesting take on the need for gratitude (aside from the hundreds of biblical injunctions of course). The magazine Inc. ran an article titled "Listening to Complainers Is Bad for Your Brain." Apparently neuroscientists have learned to measure brain activity when faced with various stimuli, including a long gripe session. And the news isn't good.

The article summarizes the research:

"Being exposed to too much complaining can actually make you dumb. Research shows that exposure to 30 minutes or more of negativity—including viewing such material on TV—actually peels away neurons in the brain's hippocampus. That's the part of your brain you need for problem solving. Basically, it turns your brain to mush."

Possible Preaching Angle:
So, basically, too much complaining (either listening to it or dishing it out) turns your brain to mush. The article provides three practical steps to avoid that negative, brain-numbing experience of complaining, but that advice can't top the Bible's simple command: "Give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thess. 5:18).

A popular pizza chain known for its snarky ad campaigns has been forced to apologize after a sustained public outcry over its latest special. In early October, D.C.-based &Pizza (pronounced “And Pizza”) announced the addition of “Marion Berry Knots” to its dessert menu, referencing the late former mayor of the District of Columbia Marion Barry. The ads for the new product made extensive references to Barry’s drug use and public drug arrests (“so good, it’s almost a felony”).

Marion Barry was arrested in a drug sting in 1990 and was eventually convicted of a misdemeanor drug charge. After six months in prison, Barry was elected to the city council in 1992, and re-elected mayor in 1994. Despite his death in 2014, the memory of Barry, the district’s first African American mayor, still looms large over residents of Washington, a city with a sizable African American population.

The local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), called the ad campaign “inflammatory, and culturally-insensitive,” calling for its removal. The organization also challenged &Pizza to donate to organizations doing substance abuse prevention as a way to rectify the wrong.

“Candidly, we made a mistake," said &pizza CEO Mike Burns in a statement. “And for that, we sincerely apologize.”

Legal representatives for Barry’s widow Cora Masters Barry and the Barry estate called the apology insufficient, issuing a cease-and-desist notice request that &Pizza refrain from profiting from Barry’s name, image, or likeness.

D.C. restaurant owner Peyton Sherwood said:

Barry’s life was about opportunity, dignity, and equality for everyone in Washington, D.C. To reduce that legacy to a crass ad about his darkest moments is not only offensive it’s cruel. It disregards the immense good Barry did for this city and the battles he fought on behalf of all its people.

Possible Preaching Angle:

A person is more than their failures. Every person is a mixture of good and bad, failures, and successes. We should always look to remove anything in our own eye before we try to remove the speck in other’s eyes (Matt. 7:1-5), even if done in jest.

Because the British royal family lives under constant media scrutiny, it’s usual for any member of the family to stay out of the limelight for an extended period. So, when Catherine of Wales hadn’t been seen in public for months, and her Mother’s Day photo was scrutinized as possibly being doctored, conspiracy theories began to proliferate.

All these theories proved to be irresistible for online jokesters. “Perhaps Kate Middleton had been using a body double, or was in a coma, or was engaged in an illicit tryst,” people speculated online. Even American late night comedy hosts were getting in on the action.

But it turns out the truth was much less exciting, and much scarier: Kate Middleton was undergoing chemotherapy treatments for a form of cancer.

For many people, this news created a regretful reckoning. A 58-year-old woman named Dana spoke to reporters at The Washington Post about this. Dana had been joking with her friends about the Kate Middleton rumors; when she heard the truth, she was filled regret. She said, “This woman’s sick and afraid. And I just lost my mom to cancer. I am devastated at my inhumanity.”

Many of the online entertainment personalities simply ceased joking and moved on to other targets, but CBS’ late-night host took an extra step, apologizing during a segment of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He said:

There’s a standard that I try to hold myself to. And that is I do not make light of somebody else’s tragedy. Any cancer diagnosis is harrowing for the patient and for their family. Though I’m sure they don’t need it from me, I and everyone here at The Late Show would like to extend our well wishes and heartfelt hope that her recovery is swift and thorough.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Telling jokes can be a great way to bring levity to your friends, but take care that your jokes do not veer into harassment or defamation of character.

Picture this: you’re nestled comfortably in your airline seat cruising towards your holiday destination when a flight attendant’s voice breaks through the silence: “Ladies and gentlemen, both pilots are incapacitated. Are there any passengers who could land this plane with assistance from air traffic control?”

If you think you could manage it, you’re not alone. Surveys indicate about 30% of adult Americans think they could safely land a passenger aircraft with air traffic control’s guidance. Among male respondents, the confidence level rose to nearly 50%.

We’ve all heard stories of passengers who saved the day when the pilot became unresponsive. For instance, in 2022, Darren Harrison managed to land a twin-engine aircraft in Florida – after the pilot passed out – with the guidance of an air traffic controller. However, such incidents tend to take place in small, simple aircraft. Flying a much bigger and heavier commercial jet is a completely different game.

Takeoffs and landings are arguably the most difficult tasks pilots perform, and are always performed manually. Only on very few occasions, can a pilot use autopilot to land the aircraft for them. This is the exception, and not the rule.

Landing is complicated, and requires having precise control of the aircraft’s direction and descent rate. To land successfully, a pilot must keep an appropriate speed while simultaneously managing gear and flap configuration, adhering to air traffic regulations, communicating with air traffic control, and completing a number of paper and digital checklists.

Once the aircraft comes close to the runway, they must accurately judge its height, reduce power, and adjust the rate of descent – ensuring they land on the correct area of the runway. On the ground, they will use the brakes and reverse thrust to bring the aircraft to a complete stop before the runway ends. This all happens within just a few minutes.

Both takeoff and landing are far too quick, technical, and concentration-intensive for an untrained person to pull off. So, if you’ve never even learned the basics of flying, your chances of successfully landing a passenger aircraft with air traffic control’s help are close to zero.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Pride; Self-confidence; Self-exaltation – This illustration speaks to the overconfidence of the human nature. We have been encouraged to overestimate our abilities and underestimate our shortcomings in today’s culture; 2) Criticism; Pastor; Minister – This could also apply to a church setting in which members criticize the performance of the pastor and leadership and often have the thought “I could do their job so much better!”

U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee recently expressed remorse for her words after an unverified audio recording of her was released to the public. Jackson Lee, who is running for mayor of Houston, was recorded chastising an unnamed staffer with an abusive tone that included several instances of profanity.

The woman in the recording, who sounds like Jackson Lee, said, “I want you to have a (expletive) brain. I want you to have read it. I want you to say, ’Congresswoman, it was such and such date. That’s what I want. That’s the kind of staff that I want to have.” In the recording she’s also heard describing another staffer as a “fat (expletive) idiot.”

While neither confirming nor denying the authenticity of recording, Jackson Lee maintained her desire to treat all her staff members with dignity and respect, and acknowledged that because of her eagerness to effectively serve her constituents, she occasionally falls short of her own standard of conduct.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Those entrusted with positions of authority and responsibility have an obligation to watch what they say. Leaders and public servants need to use words to build up, not to tear down with insults or profanity.

Of all the helping professions, police work seems the most suited to a dark, sardonic disposition often referred to as gallows humor. It’s the byproduct of being subject to crime, degradation, and violence on a day-to-day basis. Still, the case of Seattle police officer Daniel Auderer should help officers reflect on the consequences of their words, especially when they’re caught on camera.

Auderer’s bodycam footage recorded him joking with another officer while discussing the death of a pedestrian. SPD officer Kevin Dave had been driving over 70 miles per hour in his police vehicle while responding to an overdose call when his car struck and killed 26-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula in a crosswalk. Auderer had been summoned to evaluate whether Dave had been impaired at the time of the accident. Auderer was recorded saying that the city should “just write a check,” and implied that eleven thousand dollars would suffice, because, “she was 26, anyway … she had limited value.”

Auderer later wrote in a statement to the city’s Office of Police Accountability, "I intended the comment as a mockery of lawyers. I laughed at the ridiculousness of how these incidents are litigated and the ridiculousness of how I watched these incidents play out as two parties bargain over a tragedy."

Auderer admitted that anyone listening to his side of the conversation alone "would rightfully believe I was being insensitive to the loss of human life." The comment was "not made with malice or a hard heart," he said, but "quite the opposite." Still, police watchdog groups were not satisfied with the explanation, and several demanded Auderer be suspended without pay.

At the time of her death, Kandula was a student enrolled in the information systems program at Northeastern University’s Seattle campus. After her death, her uncle Ashok Mandula arranged to send her body to her mother in India. Mandula said, "The family has nothing to say. Except I wonder if these men's daughters or granddaughters have value. A life is a life."

In his book Of Boys and Men, researcher Richard Reeves notes that until around 2015, the phrase “toxic masculinity” was just mentioned a few times in academic articles. But by 2017, there were thousands of mentions, mostly in the mainstream media.

The term is almost never defined, and is instead used to simply signal disapproval. Lacking a consistent definition, the phrase now refers to any male behavior that the user disapproves of, from the tragic to the trivial. It has been blamed, among other things, for mass shootings, gang violence, online trolling, climate change, the financial crisis, and an unwillingness to wear a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lumping together terrorists and delinquents, the phrase ultimately poisons the very idea of masculinity itself. The book contains interviews from dozens of adolescent boys about what they like about being a boy. Most boys couldn’t even answer the question. One college sophomore told the author, “That’s interesting. I never thought about that. You hear a lot more about what is wrong with guys.”

In Fall 2022, the Gas app exploded in popularity among high schoolers, but a vicious, unfounded rumor caused its popularity to nosedive, confounding its founders in the process.

Titled after the internet slang “gas up” which means to flatter someone or give them good feelings, the app allows students to share anonymous compliments with their peers. But mere weeks after it reached No. 1 on the Apple store, rumors began circulating that Gas was being used for sex trafficking.

One user said, “I have a Glock and I’ll come into your house and kill all of you,” said Nikita Bier, the startup entrepreneur who founded Gas. “The messages are very detailed, and they’ll send like 150 of these messages because they’re so angry. We have had emails saying, ‘what you’re doing is disgusting and I’ve reported you to the FBI.’ We get countless messages every day from users about it.”

According to Bier, the rumors intensified after parents, teachers, news reporters, and public safety organizations amplified them without knowing if they were true or not.

One such agency was the police department in Piedmont, Oklahoma, which later had to post a retraction. Piedmont Police Chief Scott Singer later said, “That posting was the result of a post that was forwarded to us, which we later learned to be a bogus posting. As a result, we talked with the CEO of Gas, and we have determined it was a bogus posting. We have removed that from our Facebook page and informed the schools that any postings about that were discovered to be false.”

Bier says, “The app grows on its own, but dealing with the hoax requires a lot of labor.” He’s tried a variety of strategies to counter the misinformation, but it seems none of them are very effective. “The challenge is that you can only fight memes with memes. If it’s not easily screenshotable and exciting it’s not going to get more visibility than the original message.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Nothing can ruin a good situation like poor judgment and unbridled gossiping. As Christians we ought to set an example both by what we say and what we choose NOT to say.

When a protester at a press conference in Boston stood up to make his voice known, he intended to attack the credibility of Boston mayor Michelle Wu.

The unidentified man wearing sunglasses and a mask asked city officials to probe all criminal cases involving Annie Dookhan, a former chemist who pleaded guilty years prior to evidence tampering and falsifying drug results. Dookhan’s involvement has the potential to taint thousands of drug cases over the years.

The protester said, “You’re a political puppet … Why don’t you look into it, Mayor Wu? Look into that — you’ll find the truth, Mayor Wu.”

Unfortunately, the woman at the platform was not Mayor Wu, but Beth Huang, executive director of Massachusetts Voter Table, a voting-rights advocacy group. “If only being a 5’4″ Asian woman imbued in me the powers of being mayor of Boston,” Huang wrote on Twitter the following day.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When people make careless accusations without having all the facts, they can cause great damage and even discredit the cause for which they stand.

Veteran ESPN on-air talent Rachel Nichols was planning to work as a sideline reporter during the 2021 NBA Finals. Instead, she was replaced by another reporter, Malika Andrews. Nichols was sidelined by ESPN because of some comments she made during 2020’s NBA Finals. She was on a phone call but was accidentally recorded by a camera in her hotel room which was later uploaded to ESPN’s servers without her knowledge. In the footage, she is heard speaking disparagingly about another coworker, Maria Taylor (who is now with NBC Sports), implying that Taylor was chosen to cover the NBA Finals because she is Black.

Nichols, who is white, was heard saying the following:

I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world — she covers football, she covers basketball … If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity ... which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it — like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away.

Once the footage was discovered by another ESPN employee, it had been distributed internally for months until it was leaked to The New York Times for a report in early July. On ESPN’s “The Jump,” she made a special effort to address the controversy:

[I didn’t] want to let this moment pass without saying how much I respect, how much I value our colleagues here at ESPN. (And) how deeply, deeply sorry I am for disappointing those I hurt, particularly Maria Taylor, and how grateful I am to be part of this outstanding team.

Kendrick Perkins, a Black former-NBA-player costars on “The Jump,” seemed to accept her apology, and thanked her for “accepting responsibility” for her error in judgment.

Possible Preaching Angle:

If we speak haphazardly about others in our community, we risk sowing confusion and dissension. Words spoken in private still have tremendous power, and more so when they are revealed in public.

In order to combat racism, the Good Humor Ice Cream company has decided to decommission the popular tune “Turkey in the Straw” from all of its ice cream trucks, and replace it with a new customized hip-hop track.

Minstrel songs were often played in ice cream parlors, which is how they became jingles on ice cream trucks. “Turkey in the Straw” was derived from a nineteenth century Irish fiddle tune, but it was popularized in the US through vocal renditions containing lyrics that would greatly offend a listener with today’s sensibilities. Traveling minstrel shows sang it as “Zip Coon” as far back as 1834. In 1916, another recording of the tune by Harry C. Browne became popular. Its title? “[N-word] Love a Watermelon, Ha! Ha! Ha!”

To come up with a replacement, Good Humor tapped Robert Fitzgerald Diggs of the famed NY collective The Wu-Tang Clan. In a press release, Diggs, who goes by the stage name RZA, explained his involvement:

I remember the days when I would hear that iconic ice cream truck jingle outside, and I would drop what I was doing to chase it down for a treat. When I learned about that song's problematic history this summer, I knew I had to get involved.

You can listen to the new tune here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As Christians we need to be discerning about the inadvertent ways we might cause offense, and be willing to change our ways in order to communicate our values of love, peace and justice

In the Entre Leadership podcast, author Stephen Mansfield compares how barnacles slow down sea vessels to the affect gossip can have an organization or church. Some of the facts discussed in the podcast:

-Barnacles can slow down ships by as much as 40% as reported by the US Navy.

-Barnacles can get inside engines and can be added weight on the hull.

-Barnacles can actually crack the hull of smaller vessels.

-Barnacles diminish the aerodynamics of the boat.

-The number of barnacles multiply rapidly due to the constant reproduction.

-The US Navy spends $500 million a year to scrape barnacles off ships.

Possible Preaching Angles: Faultfinding; Gossip – Gossip slows down the mission and vision of the church and it affects the health of the body. There is a cost to dealing with gossip, but it’s worth it. This illustration provides a positive way to preach on a negative subject.

Pastor Scott Sauls spent five years working with Pastor Tim Keller at New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Sauls writes that there are many ways that he saw Keller model the gospel, but there is one thing that really stood out for him. Sauls writes:

Tim could receive criticism, even criticism that was unfair, and it wouldn’t wreck him. In his words and example, he taught me that getting defensive when criticized rarely, if ever, leads to healthy outcomes.

He also taught me that our critics, including the ones who understand us the least, can be God’s instruments to teach and humble us: First, you should look to see if there is a kernel of truth in even the most exaggerated and unfair broadsides. . . . So even if the censure is partly or even largely mistaken, look for what you may indeed have done wrong.

Maybe the critic is partly right for the wrong reasons. Nevertheless, identify your own shortcomings, repent in your own heart before the Lord for what you can, and let that humble you. It will then be possible to learn from the criticism and stay gracious to the critic even if you have to disagree with what he or she has said.

If the criticism comes from someone who doesn’t know you at all (and often this is the case on the Internet) it is possible that the criticism is completely unwarranted and profoundly mistaken. When that happens it is even easier to fall into smugness and perhaps be tempted to laugh at how mistaken your critics are. Don’t do it. Even if there is not the slightest kernel of truth in what the critic says, you should not mock them in your thoughts. First, remind yourself of examples of your own mistakes, foolishness, and cluelessness in the past, times in which you really got something wrong. Second, pray for the critic, that he or she grows in grace.

Leighanne Bromley was listening to a message from staff at her son’s school, and she later said when she heard the whole thing, her jaw hit the floor.

Bromley’s ten-year-old son with autism had been out of school with a cold, and the message was ostensibly a basic check-in about his return. After the point where the woman thought she had disconnected the call, however, the voicemail recorded an exchange between her and another male staffer, joking about whether or not he could be held out toward the end of the year.

Bromley understands that her son had some behavioral struggles, but was still taken aback by their cavalier disposition. “I was gobsmacked and horrified someone who is entrusted with my son's care had that attitude towards him.” The episode especially rankled Bromley because she’d only received reports of minor problems in her son’s three years of previous attendance, and even his most recent struggles were concerning enough that she’d reached out to school officials on how to best strategize solutions.

The incident also prompted questions of whether or not such disrespectful staff behavior was widespread, since more than half of the students at the school are also on the autism spectrum. In response, school headmaster Rob Jones personally apologized for their behavior, and offered a statement on the school website:

“This type of behavior is not acceptable and goes against the values of our school. We are taking this matter seriously and a full internal investigation is taking place.”

Potential Preaching Angles: Our unguarded moments tend to reveal the character inside. Thoughtless joking can cause incredible pain and suffering, and erode the sense of community we say that we want.

Singer and pop star Billy Joel's early albums were massive hits. But according to an interview with New York magazine Joel has always been unsatisfied with his music. "I never felt as good as I wanted to be," Joel said. "My bar was Beethoven." Although Joel performed a show at Madison Square Garden in July of 2024, it's been 32 years since he released a new album (as of 2025).

His reluctance to write new songs stems largely from his critics, who have often savaged his music as sappy and shallow. Joel said, "Because I studied music I was suspect to critics. To them you're supposed to be a diamond in the rough and polish yourself." Apparently Joel's inability to overcome his internal and external critics have frozen his creativity.

In his book I Declare War, Levi Lusko writes that it takes cooperation of 72 different muscles to produce speech. On average 16,000 words come out of your mouth every day. That adds up to a whopping 860.3 million words in the average American lifetime. What do all the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and sentences say about your life and the condition of your heart?

A Hawaii judge ordered a man to write dozens of compliments about his ex-girlfriend. It's all because he violated her protection order.

Darren Young, 30, was sentenced to write 144 nice things about his ex-girlfriend. He reportedly sent her dozens of offensive messages, which violated a protection order. The conditions of the protection order were that he was not to contact her at all, however, Young called and texted his ex-girlfriend 144 times between 8:39 and 11:10 p.m., police reports said. He was arrested shortly afterwards.

Judge Loo told Young he must come up with new praises to give to his former lover. "For every nasty thing you said about her, you're going to say a nice thing. No repeating words," Loo said. "I don't know whether I should cut off your fingers or take away your phone to get you to stop texting."

Possible Preaching Angles: Encouragement; Words—Writing or saying "nice things" is a good idea for any relationship, friendship, marriage, etc. You don't need a court order to be encouraging. Follow God's Word.

Our harmful words may have negative consequences that we ever imagined. James Stephens learned that lesson the hard way. Stephens was fired from his job as chief financial officer for the Georgia Subsequent Injury Trust Fund after his boss heard some less-than-flattering commentary, courtesy of an accidental pocket-dial.

Mike Coan, director of the fund and Stephens' supervisor, had a habit of calling after hours. After one such call, Stephens had a heated conversation with his wife about Coan, who was listening after Stephens accidentally called him back.

Consequently, Stephens is filing suit against his boss for eavesdropping and invasion of privacy. David Guldenschuh, the attorney representing both Stephens and his wife, claims that once Coan knew the conversation was intended to be private, he had a legal obligation to terminate the call, referring to the call as "voyeuristic eavesdropping" and "felonious conduct."

Rikki Klieman, legal analyst for CBS News, understands the rationale for the lawsuit, but sees a potential hurdle in its ability to proceed. "What we find here is someone who really believed he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in having a very, very confidential conversation with his wife and that yet, it may not be private at all."

Potential Preaching Angles: The tongue is hard to tame, be careful in our communication, what's done in private can be revealed in public.

The New York Times reported on an interesting study in an article titled "What Happens When Parents are Rude in the Hospital." A researcher at Tel Aviv University investigated simulated crisis scenarios in a neonatal ICU. Actors, posing as parents of tiny patients, gave a variety of feedback to the medical staff. For example, one rude actor in the study played a "mother" who complained loudly enough for the medical staff to hear: "I knew we should have gone to a better hospital where they don't practice Third World medicine."

The research shows that even "such mild unpleasantness" was enough to negatively impact the performance of doctors and nurses. In fact, their ability to perform in these crisis situations was negatively affected for the rest of the day. The organizers of the study conclude that "rudeness explained more error than the levels of error that have been shown to result from sleep deprivation."

Novelist William Giraldi, a contributing editor to The New Republic, wrote an essay on the modern phenomenon of online hate mail, most often found in the comments section below an article. Comments often devolve into hate-filled insults, but Giraldi draws some conclusions that Christians could agree with. First, Giraldi writes that hate mail proves that, "People are desperate to be heard, to make some sound, any sound, in the world, and hate mail allows them the illusion of doing so. Legions among us suffer from the [boredom] and [unhappiness] of modernity, from the discontents of an increasingly [isolated] society."

According to Giraldi hate mail also means that at least someone is listening to your viewpoints—even if they hate you for it. Giraldi writes, "Part of a writer's [we could insert Christian here] job should be to dishearten the happily deceived, to quash the misconceptions of the pharisaical … to unsettle and upset. If someone isn't riled by what you write, you aren't writing truthfully enough. Hate mail is what happens when you do."

Possible Preaching Angles: Jesus promised that we would be hated for his name's sake. Even if we speak the truth in love, some people will still be unsettled and riled by what we write or say.