Slander

[lilyrose]

I've been a victim of this, having things said against me that were not true, and felt powerless. And I'm not talking about "harmless gossip" amongst saints (as if any gossip is harmless), I'm talking serious allegations amongst some ministry (one couple involved were new home missions pastors and suddenly felt empowered and in the elite to be able to now gossip about the lowly saints. I say this because this is in a nutshell what was later relayed to me by the woman who first divulged the misinformation). Then eventually the serious misinformation and allegations got to someone else and caused serious problems. The thing of it was it was all twisted into a perverse understanding of what had been said in a moment of trying to seek help about a personal situation. They heard apparently what they wanted to hear, not the truth, and then went on to tell the tale in a false manner, and I guess they felt they had every God given right to do so because they are ministry. It is humliating and demoralizing to say the least.
One pastor's wife in particular has a quite toxic personality in that she gossips ALOT about their church people's personal problems or very private situations to other saints and anyone else who will listen, and her husband isn't far behind and pretty much almost does the same but he differs in that is only with certain select "elect" members, and he does nothing to stop her toxic harmful gossiping. Those who know what I'm talking about and been through it know what I mean. It kind of bothers me the freedom these pastors and ministers have to just call up about a person who attends or attended their church and basically gossip and outright slander (unwittingly or not) against people, and then create a false image about the poor person who is victim to all this, because the stuff spreads and causes a false report. There are privacy laws with medical records because people don't want their very private intimate information being told and shared
(at least it's accurate). As far as I am concerned there should be privacy laws concerning the church and it's people (half the stuff that's spread around isn't even accurate--as in the grapevine game most of us have played). There just doesn't seem to be a lot of recourse against this kind of thing currently. I would never want to come against a man of God, but at one point can or should that be stopped legally?