Are You an E-mail or Twitter Alarmist?

Are you an e-mail or Twitter alarmist? You know what I'm talking about...you get an e-mail or Tweet about all the questionable stuff going on in the government, or how crooks have found some new way to steal identities. The subject line looks something like this...

LOOK WHAT THE PRESIDENT IS DOING NOW! ...or... ALERT! THIS IS SCARY! BE ON THE LOOKOUT!

So you frantically put all your friends' and co-workers' e-mail addresses (and anyone else you can possibly think of) in the "TO" Field and hit "Send." You put it on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and all your other avenues of connecting with people. Never mind that the e-mail's been going around since the last President was in office or since e-mail was first invented.

Yes, it's true - some e-mail tales have circulated through the computer since the word "apple" just meant a fruit. There's the one about giving a little boy money for a kidney, the hero gas station attendant who sees a criminal hiding under a lady's car seat, and of course the ever-popular Madelyn Murray O'Hare is working from the grave to take "Touched by an Angel" off TV. And when you get them, it looks like they just happened yesterday.

Then you feel like an idiot when someone you don't know, whom your message got forwarded to, writes you back: "Hey buddy, this thing's ancient history."

To be sure, there is some pretty unsavory and confusing stuff making the rounds now, especially about health care. Then, just the other day, there was one about all our cell phones being bugged by criminals. And there are people who would like to decrease religious broadcasting. But how can we discern whether it's anything to "get our pants in a twist" about, or to scare others about?

Well, since there are no "E-Mail Alarmists Anonymous" meetings to attend, here are several suggestions:
-Don't circulate anything that doesn't come from a well-known, reliable organization or company.
-Don't circulate anything on which you can't find an original date, sender or source.
-Don't circulate anything that has hundreds of e-mail addresses or Twitter friends attached with the original going back more than several weeks ago.
-Watch out for videos that appear to have segments clipped...sentences may not be what they seem.

-Separate Truth from Fiction. You'd be surprised how fast the websites truthorfiction.com and Snopes.com get hold of stuff, and how far back their archives go. It's worth taking a look to see if your questionable e-mail was originally dated 1990, or if the President really said that the other day. Just put in a few key words from the subject line you received. For a while, it was rumored that Snopes was taken over by one party in Congress, but that also turned out false!

-If it's a government thing, wait a few days and see what else falls into place. Or do other research. Go to at least two media websites that you trust. Don't send your message based on evidence from one person's private opinion blog. Everyone's a journalist today. Make sure the sources are reliable, and the majority are not from an angle that can be easily accused of bias. After doing all that, you can add your own biased opinion! (Laugh here).

Keep these things in mind:
-There are people out there who start rumors on purpose to see if they can make "the other side" look like Chicken Little saying the sky is falling. They want us to get upset and run around like chickens without heads. They start rumors for the fun of it.

The Church in general - The Christian community - seems to become Chicken Little too easily, thus circulating misinformation too quickly. Just this week I held off on two stories which didn't go down as I thought they would. So the remainder of this article addresses my fellow Christians:

-There is no cause for alarm. Cause for prayer, yes - always. But not for alarm.
Psalm 27:1: The Lord is my light and my salvation-whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life-of whom shall I be afraid?

Isaiah 41:10: Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Philippians 4:6-7: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

And what if we get arrested for publicly displaying our faith, like the true case of two teachers now going on trial for praying in public on their own time? Remember God's promise and deal with it:

Mark 13:11 - "But when they arrest you and deliver you up, do not worry beforehand, or premeditate what you will speak. But whatever is given you in that hour, speak that; for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit."

Christians, Jewish people and people of other faiths outside America have bravely dealt with persecution for years. So American Christians should refrain from being "alarmists." We have nothing to fear but fear itself, as the old saying goes. Plus, things may be happening exactly like the Bible says. This doesn't mean we can't write, just like anyone else, about issues that concern us. But doing it out of fear doesn't honor our God. Men can take our physical body, our Bible and even our speech, but they can't have our soul.

The original version of this article appeared here on Sept 5, 2009 at The Underground Online Christian Magazine.
Scriptures are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.