“Foolish is the man who neverreads a newspaper; even morefoolish is the man who believeswhat he reads just becauseit is in the newspaper .”—August von Schlözer,German historianand publicist (1735-1809). I came across this articke in the October 15th wt. Page 30. "The naive person believes every word. " The objective of the article summary is in these paragraphs;" And what should you do if you find slanderousnews abouts Jehovah's organisation on the Internet? Such material should be firmly rejected.Some feel that they must bring it to the attention of others to get their opinion ,but all that does is propagate the malicious information. If we feel troubled about something we see on the Internet, we should ask Jehovah for wisdom andspeak to mature brothers about it. (Jas. 1:5, 6;Jude 22, 23) Jesus, who was the object of false accusations, warned his followers that enemies would persecute them and "lyingly say every sort of wicked thing against [them].” (Matt. 5:11; 11:19; John 10:19-21) We need to use “thinking ability”and “discernment” to identify “the man speaking perverse things” and those “whose entire course is devious.”—Prov. 2:10-16.RESPECT THE RIGHT OF OTHERSWe also have to be careful about news or expe-riences of a spiritual nature that we receive sec-ond hand.Even if a report is true, it does not nec-essarily mean that it should be spread.There maybe times when it would be neither right nor lov-ing to distribute true accounts to others. (Matt.7:12) For example, it is neither loving nor up-buildingto spread gossip, even though the infor-mation may be true. (2 Thess. 3:11; 1 Tim. 5:13)Some news may be of a confidential nature, andwe should respect the right of others to di-vulge the information at the proper time throughthe appropriate channels. Spreading informationahead of time can do much harm."
I wonder what the jw field activity will be like in Australia this month after their newspapers highlight the child abuse issue. It would be interesting to have someone there give us a feedback on reactions of the publishers, studies, and attendance at meetings after all this exposure. What are the discussions at their field service meetings in preparing the flock with what to say in defending their faith. Will they have local needs parts to handle this issue in the coming months?
