Protect your Credibility

I am ever mindful of how as Christians and homeschoolers we have to protect our reputation by being careful what we post to groups, send by e-mail or post to social networking sites. I've been bitten before by innocent sounding e-mails. By golly, it was sent to me by a pastor who received the e-mail from their good friend who says it isn't a hoax. Well there you go. It must be truth. Simply put, passing on these e-mails without researching it first erodes your credibility. Unfortunately, when you have several people in a homeschool group who continue to pass on erroneous e-mails to the group, it makes all homeschoolers look like raging idiots. Before you click "send", check your sources. Post a few bad e-mails, and no one opens up any of your e-mails again seriously handicapping your communication with others. If you do send out an erroneous e-mail, you should send a followup note to everyone on the original e-mail list and let them know about the mistake to stop the spread of these things.

Let me give you an example. Just today, I saw on several social networking sites a story about the merging of Christianity and Islam called "Chrislam". It showed the church sign below which sparked a huge debate.


Well, the sign turned out to be a fake made on this website. Look at the picture below from the website. Notice anything familiar? Ummm hmmm.



This same church sign maker was used for a less serious prank about dogs going to heaven being debated on signs outside of two churches. Fakes also. Notice anything familiar?



 

Some of you may argue that while the picture is a fake, the arguments it brings up are are valid. Keep reading.

Matthew 18:15 "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over." While this isn't a sin against me personally, going to the source first will give you a lot information. In this case, as soon as I saw the e-mail, I googled the church name and found this. This poor church is having to deal with the aftermath of a lie. Isn't Satan the author of division and confusion? Yup.

Philippians 4:8 says "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." The picture is not true, right or pure. It isn't worthy of our time or effort.

Maybe the author of the initial article thought it would be a good thing to bring some controversy to the table with this fake picture. On the other hand, maybe he didn't realize it wasn't real. He should have double checked his resources. Either way, the end result is that his credibility as a writer is shot.