It happened again. It’s happened less so of late since we started working from home, but it still happens. I’m speaking of those email forwards that you get – you’ve seen them… those ones which contain some powerpoint attachment which range from those ‘soppy-shallow-theology types with photos from creation’ to ‘beware-this-latest-email’ to the more general warnings regarding the latest serial killer’s tactics of luring people into their traps. All of these emails containing some encouragement to forward the message on (and I especially love those encouragements which read, “I’d rather get this 1000 times than not at all!”).
More often than not the content of the warning emails is generally either misinformation or an outright hoax. I’ve only ever come across one email which contained information which could probably be true.
The latest email came from a person at my church. It was about the holocaust and how the UK has stopped teaching it in their schools so as not to offend Muslims. Here is an article from Snopes.com regarding the general content and here is another article from the BBC explaining the extraordinary lengths the UK Governement is going to stop these emails.
Now it seems easy enough to simply delete these emails and get on with life – consider it spam which made it’s way into your inbox and just move on. But I’d like to point out one thing for us to keep in mind before you click ‘forward’ on the next email…
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. – 2 Peter 1:16
Peter was clear that the information he imparted regarding Christ was a true and trustworthy account. He was not making it up, nor was he relying on second-hand information – but [they] were eyewitnesses of [Jesus’] majesty.
Everytime a Christian forwards on a hoax email it impacts our credible witness to this world. If we are so quick to believe, and forward on, an email which contains unreliable information how are people going to trust us when we impart to them things of utmost importance – namely Jesus’ death and resurrection?
So before you click forward on your next email do a google search to determine if the content is true or not. Or jump onto snopes.com or hoax-slayer.com and search for your email. You might be surprised.
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