Wrongly Accused
The words “wrongly accused” lead us to think of a person sitting in jail for crimes which they did not commit. It’s a very upsetting image. When innocent people are punished the system is not working as it should and the injustice of it is enough to cause some righteous anger.
Sometimes, wrong accusations can occur because circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly leads all involved to believe they actually were guilty. They were the only one thought to be in the area, they had what appeared to be a motive, etc… It is still injustice but occurred due to the limitations of our perspective.
However, sometimes people are wrongly accused even when some of those involved know better or don’t know either way but add false testimony anyway to ensure a conviction.
Great Evil
Due to the injustice of wrongful convictions, those who actively engage in false accusations ought to be considered especially horrible. The justice system God gave to Israel required that a false witness receive the full punishment for the crime of which had accused another.
If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Deuteronomy 19:16-21
In a Proverb, we are similarly confronted with punishment for false witness.
A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will perish.
Proverbs 19:9
In the case of testimonies which are discovered false, justice is not only ensuring that the accused not be held guilty but also that the false accuser experience punishment according to his part in the wrong.
Not Just Crimes
However, lest one think he is free from guilt simply because he has never gone to court as a witness, there are far more situations to be a false witness than just criminal trials.
Institutions will often take internal actions to protect themselves on the basis of accusations with far less evidence than a criminal case would require. From HR to Title IX boards, internal handling of disciplinary actions are often seen as a way for the institution itself to protect itself from being accused falsely of coverups or indifference.
Even worse, these boards will often view falsifiable elements of testimonies as evidence that the testimony is valid! If a person claims an event occurred on a day when it could not possibly have occurred, they claim it is because the accuser experienced such trauma that he cannot remember the events properly. The falseness of the accusation is treated as its credibility!
However, as an even more common experience, people have an opportunity to bear false witness socially nearly all the time. In many ways, we live in a society of false witness. Ad hominem attribution of secret, evil motives is par for the course on social media and in conversation. How often are those missing the mark? Every time it does, it is a false witness.
As a child, many of us had a time when our parents accused us of something a sibling had done or a time when they thought we were up to no good when we had perfectly innocent motives. Sometimes, such a thing can hit very hard even knowing that our parents didn’t mean to be malicious to us, simply because it is unjust for us to be wrongly accused.
Yet now, entire media industries which claim to exist to provide us with reports of events happening in the world spend airtime ascribing entire segments of our population with motives that they do not actually have. It’s to the point where we don’t even feel the indignation we used to while being wrongly accused. We practically expect it!
The term “misinformation” is often, itself, a false accusation. Essentially accusing others of lying on many matters which later proved true (sometimes on matters which they could have known at the time were true had they investigated the source of the claims).
Take No Part
As believers, we must resist taking part in these wicked practices. Further, we ought to call it out when we see it.
Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
Ephesians 5:11
Ideally, we could get to a place where malicious witnesses receive upon themselves the consequences of those things of which they’d accused others. Obviously, we must be careful, ourselves, to ascribe false witness in cases where someone’s claims are simply not verifiable (just because their witness wasn’t confirmable does not mean that it was malicious).
However, when we know for sure that someone gave testimony about something they had no actual knowledge about (or worse, knew that they were giving false testimony) justice would see that person punished for having done so to the degree they sought to punish others.
