Most of the time, I love hanging out at a local café over a cheese toastie and a cappuccino. Usually, it’s a heartwarming and enjoyable experience. It’s like a community centre, with long tables around which everyone gathers to share laughs and stories, writes Linda Kavelin-Popov.

Occasionally, when the crowd thins out and most folks are off to work or home, the few who are left start some heavy duty gossiping and backbiting.

Gossip in a small community is expected. It’s valued currency. The “coconut wireless” is incredibly efficient at spreading information. Someone is on leave, this person just passed away, there’s a workshop coming up, a mama is ill and needs some help. But sometimes, it deteriorates into backbiting – a divisive, judgmental, sometimes vicious condemnation of others who aren’t present.

So, what’s the difference between gossip and backbiting? And what does it have to do with virtues?

Gossip is passing on the latest news about someone just out of interest or staying up to date on friends, family, and neighbors. There is no intent to judge, criticise or slander.

Venting is talking about someone and expressing our anger or hurt to a trusted listener to release stress and, hopefully, solve a problem or heal a relationship. Backbiting is mean-spirited. It has the intent of casual or serious slandering of someone’s character, judging them, ruining their reputation. Whether the accusations are true or false, it is still backbiting.

From a religious perspective, according to all the world’s scriptures, backbiting is one of the most spiritually dangerous things we can do.

I will destroy the one who secretly slanders a friend. I will not allow the proud and haughty to prevail. (Psalm 101:5) Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered. (Proverbs 11:13) We are meant to have a sin-covering eye. Matthew 7:5 says: Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. A beam is a huge piece of wood. A mote is a speck.

We have plenty of spiritual work to do on ourselves in order to acquire the virtues – the fruits of the spirit. Love, peace, joy, gentleness, and self-control, to name a few. Virtues are the fruitage of our lives and the legacy we leave after we pass on. I find this scripture startlingly honest: James 1:26 says: If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.

The Holy Q’uran, Surah An-Nur Ayat 19 says: Indeed, those who like that immorality should be spread [or publicized] among those who have believed will have a painful punishment in this world and the Hereafter. If you want to bring a curse down on yourself, go ahead and backbite: How couldst thou forget thine own faults and busy thyself with the faults of others? Whoso doeth this is accursed of Me. (Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah)

This one is really threatening: Backbiting quencheth the life of the heart and extinguisheth the light of the soul. (Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’i Teachings)

Whose soul will be darkened? The one being backbit or the one doing the backbiting? It’s pretty clear. Don’t allow a mere social habit to have sovereignty over you. Why is so much importance given to avoiding backbiting? Perhaps it is because it divides us from one another, and attacks one of God’s greatest creations – another human soul.

-          Source: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Psalm/101/5