Robert Marus and Ken Camp of the Associated Baptist Press take an extended look at the role played by Christians in the near-constant calumny that has become all too characteristic of American public discourse:
So, why are Christians so willing to believe unsubstantiated rumors? And more troubling, why are Christians, who should hold the highest standards of truth-telling, so eager to spread such rumors—and even downright libels?
Christians are not necessarily any more gullible than the population at large—and there’s the rub, said Bill Tillman, a Christian-ethics professor at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary, a Texas Baptist school.
“Their gullibility seems to follow the culture’s levels and channels of gullibility,” Tillman said. “That similarity should give Christians pause to think: If I am no different than the surrounding culture on the treatment of e-mails and communication they carry, with what else am I no different?
“I do think that, like the larger culture, some Christians do follow certain patterns that reflect where their theological ideas parallel their political ideologies.”