Gossip, slander and lies

Recently, Mr. Mom wrote a comment that suggested that exposing Rev. Rutledge in this blog can be characterized as gossip, slander and lies.  In fact, it is almost a knee jerk reaction to anyone who is trying to deal with sin issues to be labelled  judgmental.

 Of course, if I was being judgmental, or truly acting in a way that could be characterized as gossip, slander or telling lies then I would be the one in sin.  

If I was acting in a clean and holy way, being faithful to the facts, with the motive of healing the Body of Christ, exposing evil in a biblical way and holding Ralph Rutledge accountable for a life of unprofessional, immoral and abusive conduct in a mature way, then the one accusing me of gossip, slander and lies is the one in sin.

One of God's main offensive or aggressive weapons is the word.  Christian leaders must be skilled at using the Word of God for reproof and correction.  If we cave in to everyone waving the flag of "judgmental" we would be allowing the mature Christian to be disarmed. 

We don't want mature Christians afraid of loving healthy confrontation.   We are supposed to be competent to confront.  Jay Adams based his theology of Christian counselling on this concept.

This is a matter worthy of study and more blogs entries.  We need to know what is and is not gossip, slander and being judgmental (in the bad way.)