Friday, August 09, 2013

Deborah Smith Pegues on Gossip


Deborah Smith Pegues makes war on gossip in one of her thirty devotions in 30 Days to Taming Your Tongue.1 Like Franklyn Wise, she emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit, but she does not emphasize the role of the heart. Pegues urges a comprehensive strategy. “If you are serious about eliminating gossip from your life, you must start an all-out campaign against it. Let everyone know you will not be a bearer or a hearer of ‘choice morsels’ about anyone.”2



1Deborah Smith Pegues, 30 Days to Taming Your Tongue (Eugene: Harvest House, 2005).
2Ibid., 48.


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Note: We are in the middle of a long blog series working through my doctoral research into the problem of gossip. We have listened to many voices along the way--proponents of gossip, those who have exacerbated or exploited the problem, those who are ambiguous or ambivalent, and now opponents of gossip both secular and religious.

Two weeks ago, we surveyed the contributions of business leaders, social workers, educators, and Jewish moral teaching against gossip.

This week, we are continuing to interact with Christian teachers throughout church history.

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