On Destroying a Reputation – Sunday, September 26, 1943
A trend that has always caused apprehension among far-thinking men is encroachment upon judiciary function—the short-circuiting of the processes of justice, whereby various non-judicial agencies or officers accuse, try, convict, pronounce sentence, and execute judgment without what has traditionally come to be known as “due process of law.”
But there is another type of usurpation of the functions of justice which is more long-standing, and more universal than encroachment upon the power of the civil courts—and that is the judgment which individuals and groups of men and women presume to pronounce upon the character and qualifications of their fellow men—with whispered testimony—cowardly, self-appointed tribunals that accuse, try, and condemn a man without his ever having known of it. One point on which scripture is repeatedly definite is the injunction: “Judge not that ye be not judged.” . . . “Judgment. . . is mine,” saith the Lord. And yet because of real or imagined slight, or personal prejudice, or jealousy, or envy, or because of the sheer malicious pleasure of gossiping, there are those who are given to destroying the peace and effectiveness and reputation of others.
The fact is that if you’re looking for it, you can find offense against any man, because perfection in the human race is conspicuous by its absence. And you can do harm to the standing of any man in the estimation of others by minimizing his virtues and magnifying his faults, or you can build up any man in the minds of others by magnifying his virtues and minimizing his faults. But the reverse is the function of the scandal-mongers and the gossips and the professional dirt vendors—to ignore the real and genuine and fine things about life and people, and to cast a glare on blemishes— and in the eyes of a jealous or malicious observer any one may be judged unfit for the thing he is doing or may propose to do. It is not improbable that people who are loose in their judgment of others are the instigators of more sorrow, more mischief, and more waste of human lives than wars, famines, and pestilence’s, because there isn’t any home or any country or any heart that is proof against them. “Judge not that ye be not judged.”
To sit in the judgment seat upon our fellow men with malicious and harmful intent or with careless and thoughtless indulgence is a flagrant usurpation of judicial function. It is a major offense against humanity, and those who indulge in it will surely reap as they have sown.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Sept. 26, 1943, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1943.
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September 26, 1943
Broadcast Number 0,736