Reader Questions Answered –

What do you think of the petition to the FCC that's going around on email? (11/6/2008)

"Children, don't let anyone deceive you!" (1 John 3:7a).
"Beloved, don't believe every spirit! But test the spirits to see whether they are from God--because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1)

This advice from John is close to 2000 years old, and it is still pertinent today. I rarely forward the stuff I get on email, and I never forward anything to everyone in my address book. My normal reply to email hoaxes is to delete them, sometimes with a follow-up request to the sender to check snopes.com or truthorfiction.com before passing things on to me.

However, I've gotten the email entitled "Sign petition for reading Bible on airwaves" so many times in the past few days that I am alerting all of you not to send it on to anyone.

This story (see below) is an urban legend, a hoax, and a waste of the taxpayers' money. Get the truth at these two websites:

Family Focus on Petition 2493
Snopes on Petition 2493

The short version of the information on these websites, which I read all the way through, is as follows.

1. This petition has been circulating since about 1975, during which time the FCC has gotten more than 30,000,000 pieces of mail. Various email versions have been circulating since 1995. The FCC has spent 30 years trying to kill this hoax. It costs you and me money, folks, for federal employees to deal with mail, email, and phone calls. Save your attention for the IRS and the Congress!

2. Madalyn Murray O'Hair is dead. She is no longer attacking Christianity. In fact, she wasn't even a sponsor of the original RM-2493.

3. The real RM-2493 would not have banned the reading of the Gospel on TV in the first place, and was turned down by the FCC in 1975 in the second place.

4. The FCC has no power or authority to prevent the reading of the Gospel on TV.

5. Dr. Dobson has nothing to do with this petition.

6. Focus on the Family says it is a hoax, and that when Christians circulate this kind of easily disproved nonsense (my word, not theirs), "The problem is that by uncritically forwarding some of these e-mails, we often violate the command against bearing false witness, and we hurt the church's credibility when we then try to preach a gospel of truth" (emphasis added).

So, my beloved children, don't let anyone deceive you. Test every email to see whether it is truthful before sending it on, because many false emails have gone out into the world.

Copyright 2008, 2013 by Regina L. Hunter. All rights reserved. This page has been prepared for the web site by Deanna Rains.

Opinions expressed on this page are solely those of the author, Regina Hunter, and may or may not be shared by the sponsors or the Bible-study participants. Thanks to the Holy Spirit for any useful ideas presented here, and thanks to all the readers for their support and enthusiasm. All errors are, of course, the sole responsibility of the author.

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