Treachery

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.

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.

In our celebrity-crazed culture it's not surprising that people go crazy for memorabilia. For instance, the red leather jacket Michael Jackson wore for his Thriller video sold for over $1.5 million in 2011, and a John Lennon piano sold for over $2 million. But this appetite for celebrity souvenirs had spawned a lucrative market for fakes and forgeries.

Consider the story of some alleged original artwork by the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. In 2014 Peter Harrington, a rare books and prints establishment in London, acquired an "Original Bob Dylan artwork." Supposedly Dylan created the artwork for an album covered but it never got used. But when Peter Harrington employees started researching the items for their catalog, several pieces didn't add up. After extensive interviews, they determined that the highly-prized Dylan artwork was actually a fake. The auction house that originally sold the piece refused to take responsibility for auctioning a fake.

An employee from Peter Harrington's writes:

This cautionary tale shows how far forgers will go to defraud dealers and collectors, and how they can sometimes exploit an auction house's less-than-rigorous approach to research. These [fakes] come in all shapes and sizes; some … are fairly easy to spot; others, painstakingly faked by individuals with an encyclopedic knowledge of both music history and the memorabilia industry, can pose more of a challenge to authentication. Often accompanied by elaborately fabricated origins, it can take both inventive research, specialist industry contacts, and an instinct for authenticity to sniff out a fake.

George Washington and Benedict Arnold. Both were dynamic men of action with unquestioned personal courage; both were driven by passionate ambition from an early age; both were capable of inspiring the men they commanded to acts of extraordinary sacrifice and endurance; both were hot-tempered by nature. Yet, despite all of these superficial similarities, one of them ended up a traitor, the other Father of His Country.

It all boiled down to character, a case of honor versus glory. George Washington was guided by an indestructible sense of honor; Benedict Arnold was driven by a thirst for personal glory and the perquisites it could bring. Both men hungered for greatness, but to Washington, greatness meant subordination of self to a greater cause, learning from mistakes, and mastering personal weaknesses. To Arnold, greatness meant the triumph of self over others, wealth, privilege, and the indulgence of personal appetites. For him, causes were merely vehicles.

None of this detracts from Arnold's earlier achievements to America's independence. Arnold helped drive the British out of Boston in the early part of the War. He also took the offensive against the British in twin battles that ended in the surrender of an entire British army at Saratoga. But Arnold also had a consistent pattern of insubordination, excessive drinking, and lavish overspending. He tried to recoup his fortunes through his marriage to a young society beauty named Peggy Shippen. Shippen's connections led Arnold to a young British officer named Major John André, who served as a middle man for Arnold's later treason.

But, ultimately, it was Arnold's own nature that was key to his betrayal. As the many real and imagined slights and humiliations piled up, he had no core sense of duty or honor to counterbalance personal grievance. It was all about him—and so, as far as he was concerned, treason was just a career move.

Nothing boosts the prestige of a food or beverage like the perception that it is traditional, hand-picked, fresh, or otherwise limited in production. But in a world full of manipulative marketers, the truffle is the real deal. A type of fungus that grows on tree roots, a few truffle varieties found in France, Spain, and surrounding areas are esteemed as a decadent addition to pasta and steaks. And these fickle cousins of mushrooms have proven impossible to mass produce; they are still dug up individually by dogs that track their scent.

Admirers contend that the truffle begins to lose its flavor as soon as it is pulled from the ground, and fresh truffle season really only lasts a season. The rarity and temporality of truffles has made them the most expensive food in the world. In 2007, a Macau casino owner set a record by paying $330,000 for a 3.3 pound truffle unearthed in Tuscany. The combination of these two trends—the desire for a convenient, ever-ready supply of an ingredient, and a hunger for the traditional, the rare, and "real food"—led to what would seem to be a remarkably successful scam on foodie culture: truffle oil.

But most truffle oil does not contain even trace amounts of truffle; it is olive oil mixed with 2,4-dithiapentane, a compound that makes up part of the smell of truffles and is as associated with a laboratory as Californian food is associated with local and organic ingredients. Essentially, truffle oil is olive oil plus truffles' "disconcerting" smell. Despite truffle oil's poor source, though, it has been used and praised by both average joes and renowned chefs. Truffle oil has been a remarkably successful con.

Possible Preaching Angles: Are we Christians in name only? Jesus warned against wolves in sheep's clothing or a "devotion to God" that involves no obedience to God.

In April 2016, Harper's Magazine published a fascinating report about a man named Jay Miscovich, who found what he claimed were hundreds of emeralds from a Spanish shipwreck that went down in 1622. The Florida Keys have long been a hunting ground for sunken treasure. So many vessels were wrecked among the islands and reefs, loaded as they were with billions of dollars' worth of gold, silver, and jewels being shipped in countless Spanish armadas as they sailed from South America to Spain, that they still attract hundreds of seekers after true treasure. Jay's samples and claims that he'd found masses of emeralds that were still out there were estimated to be worth a half billion dollars.

With the advice of a partner, lawyers, and jewel experts, millions of investment dollars were collected from private individuals, wall street managers, and a company specifically set up to protect this enormous find. The article paints Jay as a sympathetic character. He is likeable in ways that make you end up rooting for him. Most of those who contributed to his project were individuals or companies who only cared about what monetary value could be gained from owning or selling the priceless jewels for themselves.

In the end, the world discovered that Jay Miscovich's entire story was manufactured. He made it all up, including deliberately "seeding" the ocean floor with emeralds he'd bought on the market. Exactly as he hoped, his false claims drew the interest of treasure hunters. But down the road as unaccountable discrepancies surfaced, such as the Belgian jewelers finding an epoxy resin on the surface of the emeralds that could only have been added in modern times, and as one by one the investors pulled out, the entire story unraveled. Along with investigations came lawsuits, loss of friendships and family, and a poisonous atmosphere of distrust and anger.

Possible Preaching Angles: All of us are searching for "treasure," the pearl of great price. We are all treasure hunters. But are we on the trail of true treasure or a fake treasure?

In Walter Van Tilburg Clark's novel The Ox-Bow Incident, an exited youth passes on a rumor that popular rancher has been murdered and his cattle stolen. Eventually an angry mob of townspeople decided they can't wait for the sheriff for fear that the desperadoes will get away, so they form a makeshift posse. Riding long and hard, they discover three strangers and a herd of steers near an oxbow in the river. The strangers claim that they had paid for their cattle that morning and don't know anything about a murder. Despite their repeated pleas of innocence, the mob casts a guilty, except for five who vote they be turned over the courts. The strangers are summarily hung.

Them as the vigilantes return to town, they meet the sheriff and the rancher whom they believed had been killed. It turns out the strangers had been telling the truth all along and the men they had just murdered had nothing to do with the rustling.

Here's a deeply moving story from Iraq. It's a story of betrayal and the fracturing of a relationship. The New York Times reports it this way: "The afternoon before his family fled the onslaught of Sunni militants, Dakhil Habash was visited by three of his Arab neighbors. Over tea, his trusted friend Matlul Mare told him not to worry about the advancing [ISIS] fighters and that no harm would come to him or his Yazidi people. The men had helped one another over the years: Mr. Mare brought supplies to Mr. Habash's community and he bought tomatoes and watermelon from Mr. Habash's farm and sometimes borrowed money.

But his friend's assurances did not sit right with Mr. Habash. That night, he gathered his family and fled. Soon afterward, he said, he found out that Mr. Mare had joined the militants and was helping them hunt down Yazidi families. 'Our Arab neighbors turned on all of us,' said Mr. Habash, who recounted his story from a makeshift refugee camp on the banks of a fetid stream near the city of Zakho, in Iraqi Kurdistan. 'We feel betrayed. They were our friends.'

It would be the last time the men saw each other, as they were swept into different spheres of Iraq's fracturing sectarian landscape, where militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are filling their ranks with the country's disenfranchised Sunni Arabs.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sadly, this story gets played out over and over again—throughout history, communities, families, marriages, friends, and churches.

In 1991 two hikers in the Italian Alps stumbled upon a 5,300-year-old corpse that would later be dubbed "Ötzi the Iceman." Preserved for more than five millennia in the ice and dry mountain air, Ötzi is the oldest intact corpse ever found. Forensic investigation revealed that Ötzi was most likely a shepherd. Ötzi was also a murder victim. He had been shot in the back with an arrow. As a Bronze Age shepherd who became a murder victim, we might think of Ötzi as the Abel of the Alps. In other words, the oldest human corpse was not found resting in a peaceful grave with attendant signs of reverence, but sprawled upon a bleak mountainside with an arrow in his back.

It's a distressing commentary on the origins of human civilization. It seems that human civilization is incapable of advancing without shooting brothers in the back. Tthe number of Ötziswho lay slain by a Cain are incalculable. In a world that spills the blood of the innocent, it's easy to despair. But the world Abel and Ötzi were slain in, Jesus came to save.

Editor's Note: Although we've added a touch of humor to this story, to the best of our knowledge, this story was based on a real incident. All the details and the quotes come from the original article from a local Utah newspaper.

As the saying goes, "Dogs are man's best friend." A dog should stand by your side no matter what. So you know you're having a bad day when you get shot in the back by your own dog.

That's what happened to a 46-year old Utah man. At 8:30 A.M. on the north end of the Great Salt Lake near the bird refuge, the duck hunting enthusiast (who was not named in the local news reports) and his dog were drifting in a canoe-type boat. When the man stepped into the marsh to set up some decoys, he left his 12-guage shotgun resting across the bow of the boat.

According to Kevin Potter, the local sheriff's deputy, that's when the dog "did something to make the gun discharge." Apparently the excited dog jumped on the boat's bow and stepped on the gun. The gun went off, shooting the man in the "buttocks" with 27 pellets of birdshot.

Deputy Potter wouldn't speculate about the dog's motives for the shooting. Although he would say, "(The dog) did something to make the gun discharge. I don't know if the safety device was on. It's [possible] the dog could have taken it off safety."

Police called the incident an "accident." No charges have been filed and the dog still isn't talking.

Preaching Angles: (1) Teamwork, Disunity—Sometimes the people we thought were on our team are the ones who shoot us in the back. (2) Relationships, Trust—This could also provide a lighthearted illustration about relationships—as in, "If you can't trust your dog—'man's best friend'—then who can you trust? Sometimes the people (or even the pets) we trust the most let us down." (3) Stress, Troubles—You could use this story as to set up a sermon on how to deal with the routine bad days and tough life circumstances we all face—as in, "You know you're having a bad day when your own dog shoots you in the buttocks. Sometimes life feels that way, doesn't it?"

We tend to think that people are either honest or dishonest …. We like to believe that most people are virtuous, but a few bad apples spoil the bunch. If this were true, society might easily remedy its problems with cheating and dishonesty ….

But that is not how dishonesty works. Over the past decade or so, my colleagues and I have taken a close look at why people cheat, using a variety of experiments and looking at a panoply of unique data sets—from insurance claims to employment histories to the treatment records of doctors and dentists. What we have found, in a nutshell: Everybody has the capacity to be dishonest, and almost everybody cheats—just by a little. Except for a few outliers at the top and bottom, the behavior of almost everyone is driven by two opposing motivations. On the one hand, we want to benefit from cheating and get as much money and glory as possible; on the other hand, we want to view ourselves as honest, honorable people. Sadly, it is this kind of small-scale mass cheating, not the high-profile cases, that is most corrosive to society.

Editors Note: Dan Ariely is a professor of Behavior Economics at Duke University. This quote is adapted from his book "The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves."

In September 2011, The New York Times ran an article about a small town in Missouri called Mountain Grove. Gossip and rumors have always existed in this tight-knit community, but before the days of anonymous social media sites, people traded stories at the local diner called Dee's Place. At Dee's Place you could usually find a dozen longtime residents who gathered each morning to talk about weather, politics, and, of course, their neighbors.

But of late [the article reports], more people in this hardscrabble town of 5,000 have shifted from sharing the latest news and rumors over eggs and coffee to … a social media Web site called Topix, where they write and read startlingly negative posts, all cloaked in anonymity, about one another. [Unlike sites like Facebook, which require users to give their real names, Topix users can pick different names and thus remain anonymous.]

And in Dee's Place, people are not happy. A waitress, Pheobe Best, said that the site had provoked fights and caused divorces. The diner's owner, Jim Deverell, called Topix a "cesspool of character assassination." And hearing the conversation, Shane James, the cook, wandered out of the kitchen tense with anger.

His wife, Jennifer, had been the target in a post … which described the mother of two, as among other things, "a methed-out, doped-out [addict] with AIDS" Not a word was true, Mr. and Mrs. James said, but the consequences were real enough …. Now, the couple has resolved to move. "I'll never come back to this town again," Ms. James said in an interview at the diner. "I just want to get … out of town."

The article concludes with a warning about gossip: "The same Web sites created for candid talk about local news and politics are also hubs of unsubstantiated gossip, stirring widespread resentment in communities where ties run deep … and anonymity is something of a novel concept."

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, author of Words That Hurt, Words That Heal, has lectured throughout this country on the powerful, and often negative, impact of words. He often asks audiences if they can go 24 hours without saying any unkind words about, or to, another person. Invariably, a small number of listeners raise their hands, signifying "yes." Others laugh, and quite a large number call out, "no!"

Telushkin responds: "Those who can't answer 'yes' must recognize that you have a serious problem. If you cannot go 24 hours without drinking liquor, you are addicted to alcohol. If you cannot go 24 hours without smoking, you are addicted to nicotine. Similarly, if you cannot go 24 hours without saying unkind words about others, then you have lost control over your tongue."

The movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is based on the classic novel by C. S. Lewis about four London children who are sent to a professor's country home for protection during World War II. There they find a magic wardrobe that leads to a mystical land called Narnia. To defeat the White Witch, who holds the country under her wicked spell, the children must join forces with Aslan, the Lord of Narnia.

Edmund (Skandar Keynes), one of the four children, has been seduced by the false promises of the Witch (Tilda Swinton). She promised Edmund a position in her kingdom if he would bring his siblings to her. Though he succumbed to her tempting offer, he failed to fulfill the Witch's request and was imprisoned in her palace.

When Edmund is rescued from the Witch and is brought under the care of Aslan, the Witch comes to protest, demanding Edmund's blood.

Standing before Aslan, she declares, "You have a traitor in your midst."

Aslan responds, "His offense is not against you."

"Have you forgotten the laws upon which Narnia was built?" asks the Witch.

Aslan growls and answers, "Don't cite the deep magic to me, Witch. I was there when it was written."

"Then you'll remember well that every traitor belongs to me. His blood is my property."

Edmund's brother, Peter, draws his sword. "Try and take him, then."

"Do you really think," asks the Witch, "that mere force will deny me my right, little king? Aslan knows that, unless I have blood as the law demands, all of Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire and water. That boy will die upon the stone table—as is tradition. You dare not refuse me."

"Enough," declares Aslan. "I shall talk with you alone."

Aslan enters the tent, followed by the Witch. After a short time they return. Edmund and the entire village await the news.

Aslan speaks: "She has renounced her claim on the son of Adam's blood."

As the people begin to rejoice, the Witch asks Aslan, "How can I know your promise will be kept?"

His response is a ferocious roar.

Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund's sister, rejoices and smiles at Aslan. Then suddenly, as if she realizes something is amiss, her smile begins to fade.

What Lucy doesn't know, at this moment, is the cost of Edmund's freedom. For it has been settled that Aslan will die on the stone table in Edmund's place.

Content: PG for battle sequences and frightening moments

Elapsed Time: DVD chapter 17, 01:32:00 – 01:35:15}

Video: Quicktime Version of the trailer for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"

For a picture of ruthless ambition, you could look no further than Richard Owen, the gifted scientist who coined the term dinosaur in 1841. Owen wrote about 600 scientific papers and was the first to describe the archaeopteryx. But he would stop at nothing to further his career.

He told the publication Churchill's Medical Directory that he held the prestigious position of Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at the Government School of Mines. Too bad that the position was actually held by another man, naturalist T. H. Huxley.

Owen then took a discovery made by scientist Hugh Falconer and claimed that he had done it.

Owen essentially stole important specimens from other scientists; he would borrow the specimens, then never return them. When the scientists confronted him, he would deny he had ever borrowed anything.

When a young anatomist, Robert Grant, showed promise, Owen must have seen him as a threat, because he used his contacts at the Zoological Society to blackball Grant. Writes Bill Bryson, "Grant was astonished to discover that he was suddenly denied access to the anatomical specimens he needed to conduct his research." His promising career went nowhere.

Then Owen turned on Gideon Mantell, the person who had discovered the iguanodon and other dinosaur species. Mantell had been crippled from a serious accident, so he was unable to defend himself when Richard Owen "set about systematically expunging Mantell's contributions from the record, renaming species that Mantell had named years before and claiming credit for their discovery for himself."

When Mantell tried to publish new research, "Owen used his influence at the Royal Society to ensure that most of his papers were rejected. In 1852, unable to bear any more pain or persecution, Mantell took his own life."

If that weren't horrifying enough, when Mantell died, an anonymous obituary appeared in the Literary Gazette, criticizing Mantell as a mediocre scientist and claiming that the iguanodon was really discovered, in part, by Richard Owen. The obituary was almost certainly written by Owen.

Concludes author Bill Bryson: "Even Owen's son (who soon after killed himself) referred to his father's 'lamentable coldness of heart.'"

It is a sign of youthful arrogance to try to build up a reputation by assailing prominent figures.

In the night when his people betrayed him--the night of intensest enmity--the dear Lord Jesus said, "This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many." Then! Can we comprehend the joining of two such extremes, the good, and the evil together? In the night of gravest human treachery he gave the gift of himself. And the giving has never ceased. The Holy communion continues today.