{"id":43889,"date":"2011-10-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/small-town-embittered-by-anonymous-gossip\/"},"modified":"2011-10-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T00:00:00","slug":"small-town-embittered-by-anonymous-gossip","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/small-town-embittered-by-anonymous-gossip\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Town Embittered by Anonymous Gossip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In September 2011, <em class=\"citation\">The New York Times<\/em> 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&#39;s Place. At Dee&#39;s Place you could usually find a dozen longtime residents who gathered each morning to talk about weather, politics, and, of course, their neighbors.<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>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 &hellip; 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.]<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>And in Dee&#39;s Place, people are not happy. A waitress, Pheobe Best, said that the site had provoked fights and caused divorces. The diner&#39;s owner, Jim Deverell, called Topix a &quot;cesspool of character assassination.&quot; And hearing the conversation, Shane James, the cook, wandered out of the kitchen tense with anger.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>His wife, Jennifer, had been the target in a post &hellip; which described the mother of two, as among other things, &quot;a methed-out, doped-out [addict] with AIDS&quot; Not a word was true, Mr. and Mrs. James said, but the consequences were real enough &hellip;. Now, the couple has resolved to move. &quot;I&#39;ll never come back to this town again,&quot; Ms. James said in an interview at the diner. &quot;I just want to get &hellip; out of town.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>The article concludes with a warning about gossip: &quot;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 &hellip; and anonymity is something of a novel concept.&quot;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[405,411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3484,3641,3726,4086,4124,4311,4417,4535,4818,4863,4994,5171,5188],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-43889","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-betrayal","tax_ctp_tags-communication","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-gossip","tax_ctp_tags-hatred","tax_ctp_tags-judging-others","tax_ctp_tags-malice","tax_ctp_tags-neighbor","tax_ctp_tags-respect","tax_ctp_tags-rumor","tax_ctp_tags-slander","tax_ctp_tags-tongue","tax_ctp_tags-treachery"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Small Town Embittered by Anonymous Gossip - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/small-town-embittered-by-anonymous-gossip\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Small Town Embittered by Anonymous Gossip - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In September 2011, The New York Times ran an article about a small town in Missouri called Mountain Grove. 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