Chain Letters

*This is also an imported post from September 2006, the days when Myspace reigned over the social media market. However, its message is still relevant and I still feel this way because I STILL get emails like this from friends and family, ALL THE TIME.*

Everyone loves email forwards and myspace bulletins. We pass on jokes, quotes, and stuff to make you think. But nobody really likes chain letters. I'm not sure anyone even really believes, "If you do this your true love will kiss you" or "If you don't pass this on, you will have bad luck for the rest of your life." Yet we keep on passing them on. Why?

One particular type of chain letter that I find especially annoying is the religious chain letter. Mind you, I am a Christian. I love God, and I love good stories that uplift and teach a good Christian moral. I have no problem with these types of emails and bulletins, until I come to the guilt trip that I find inevitably tacked on to each of them. It normally says something like, "If you're not ashamed of God, then pass it on." Or my all-time favorite, "Isn't is sad how it's so easy to forward all your dirty jokes to friends, but when you get a message about God, you're embarrassed to send it?" Thanks, guys. You've just put me right in the middle of a moral dilemma. If I send this to people, they will moan and groan about yet another chain letter, but if I don't send it, then God knows I am "ashamed" of him. Do I share this wonderful message about God, or do I delete it because it has that stupid chain letter addendum?

My general answer to this is to delete these kinds of forwards. Now before you try to run me out of town on a rail, hear me out. I don't forward very many things to begin with, and when I do, I generally only send it to one or two people in my address book. My criteria for whether I forward something or not is:

• Does the message have merit (can you take something valuable from it, like a smile, a laugh, or a good moral)?
• Will the person I am sending this to appreciate it?
• Is it free of stipulations (e.g., "pass this on within 24 hours or you will die a virgin")?

The truth is, when I receive a forward that is religious in nature, I'm much more likely to send it on if it doesn't tell me I should. Call it my rebellious streak if you will. I'll give you an example of what I mean. A few days ago, I received an email that had a "guilt trip" addendum. By the time I got finished reading the addendum, I had already decided that I would delete the message, just because I didn't want anyone I sent it to possibly passing it on simply out of guilt. But yesterday, a friend posted a bulletin with a story that was so touching I cried. I re-posted it for my friends to read without even giving it a second thought. Then I realized that it didn't kill the good feeling I got by guilt-tripping me into passing it on. I was much more willing to share this message than I was the other one, because in the end, it was the message itself and not the addendum that made me re post it. I am also happy to report that this bulletin has been re-posted by my other friends at least three times since I put it up, so the message is getting out there.

Now, I understand what these chain letters with attached guilt trips are saying. They're saying we shouldn't think twice about passing on a good message about God. They're saying that we should be just as inclined to pass on words of Christian inspiration as we are to pass on funny pictures or jokes. However, the message is largely missed because we start passing on things because they tells us to, or because they make us feel like if we don't, we don't love God the way we should. In fact, the ONLY reason we should pass on a message about God is because we WANT to, not because we feel obligated as Christians to do so. We should only pass on messages that touch us, messages that we can feel good about sending to someone else. You can bet that when you pass a message on in sincerity, it will be received better than it would be otherwise.