Cause to slander?

The book Sold Into Eygpt by Madeleine L’Engle is turning out to be full of gems of truth and wisdom.  She traces Joseph’s journey into “human being” as she traces her own steps through grief following the death of her husband.

I found this passage to be especially meaningful – from Chpt 6, Naphtali:
     “What must Joseph have thought about as he lay
      in prison?  There were as yet no Psalms to
      comfort him, no written scripture to give 
      him guidance and hope.  Again he was
      plunged into the darkness of betrayal,
      alone with his thoughts, in a strange land
      among strange people…
      Slander from the mouth of a selfish and greedy
      woman is more understandable than slander
      from those who loudly proclaim themselves as
      Christians.  Potiphar’s  wife slandered because
      she didn’t get her own way.  “Christains” often
      appear to slander for love of slander…
      I have received a good bit of this treatment. 
      When A Wrinkle In Time was yet again
      attacked during Hugh’s last summer, at a time 
      when he was at home between hospital stays,
      he said, “They are afraid” and I suspect that
      he was right…”

She goes on to explain that the attack had come as she realized that the work of writing was her “vocation” – God’s gift to her. 

She goes on to say:
      “Hugh again pointed out that the
       attackers are afraid, afraid that their safe
       little God-in-a-box may not be safe at all
       – loving, perfectly loving, but not safe in
       a finite sense.  Or afraid that their cozy
       and exclusive beliefs may possibly be too
       narrow.  But when we truly have faith in
       God’s love, then the wideness of God’s
       mercy does not terrify.”