Mudslinging has become as much a part of the American political landscape as shaking hands and kissing babies. In fact, some candidates seem to spend more time telling voters how bad the other candidates are instead of expounding on their own principles and platforms. They only try to convince voters that they aren’t quite as bad as their opponents.

Many candidates attack not only each other’s issues, but also each other on a very personal level. In fact, some of the mudslinging has become so ruthlessly barbaric that it has been called “the new incivility.”

Stephen Daniels, University of Alabama at Birmingham political scientist, contends, however, that mudslinging is not a recent tactic in political campaigns. “Abraham Lincoln was subjected to insults because of his physical appearance. Grover Cleveland’s rivals accused him of fathering an illegitimate child.”

In 1836 Congressman Davy Crockett accused candidate Martin Van Buren of secretly wearing women’s clothing: “He is laced up in corsets!” Crockett exclaimed.

In 1876 the opponents of Rutherford B. Hayes spread around a rumor that he had shot his own mother in a fit of rage.

In the Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina in January there were some rather volatile jabs (some would call it mudslinging) between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Clinton proclaimed that Obama complemented the Republican ideals. Obama denied Clinton’s assertion and stated, “While I was working on the streets watching folks as their jobs were being shipped overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board of Wal-Mart.”

Clinton retaliated, “I was fighting against Republican ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Tony Rezko, in his slum landlord business in the inner city of Chicago.”

The verbal jousting among Republican candidates has not been much better and we can be certain that it will get worse. Some politicians serve their constituents with dignity and selflessness and become statesmen (or should I say “statespersons”). Others promise and pontificate, maneuver and manipulate, orate and obfuscate until it makes one question the whole political system.

In fact, there is a new book called Anything for a Vote: Dirty Tricks, Cheap Shots, and October Surprises by Joseph Cummins. The author writes, “The idea for this book was born shortly after the 2004 presidential election. In the contentious contest, Democratic candidate and war hero John Kerry was vilified as a coward by an organization called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, while incumbent president George W. Bush was rumored to be such a dunce that he had to be wired to a transmitter to participate in the public debate.”

It appears to me that if a candidate doesn’t defend himself (or herself) in a political campaign he/she will be chewed up and spit out by the rest of the opponents in the race to win the election.

Since it is no longer sufficient for newscasts to simply report the news but treat their news as entertainment, our whole sense of propriety has been skewed by sensationalism. As a result the political candidates’ attacks and counter-attacks dominate the reporting of the news.

Unfortunately, mudslinging is not just a political problem, but also an abscess that has oozed its toxin throughout the whole of life and even infiltrated the church.

In a penetrating passage warning against mudslinging in church, Paul says, “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.” In addressing this passage John MacArthur says, “Words like ‘bite’ and ‘devour’ refer primarily to wild animals engaged in the fury of a deadly struggle. If we go around taking chunks out of one another we will ‘consume one another,’ as do sharks and hyenas.”

Too many churches today are engaged in the fury of a deadly struggle. Sometimes it is between the pastor and the congregation. Quite often it is over the style of worship or the kind of music. In Baptist life we have a controversy between the Calvinists and Arminians. There is always the possibility of a clash between generations, the role of women in the church, or any number of things, but there is never a time for mudslinging among the people of God.

When mudslinging or backbiting occurs among the people of God, when we consume one another as wild animals, we give credence to the concept of evolution. We did not evolve from animals. The hands of a loving God created us; and we should reflect His character and speak with grace and charity.

In Prov. 25:11 the Bible says, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”

Paul wrote: “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers.”

Let the politicians sling mud, if they must, but let the church always be known for “spreading the truth in love.”