Social Media 01

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15, KJV)

And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. (Ecclesiastes 12:12, KJV)

There's a woman in Pennsylvania who has made it her mission to locate social media postings that are set up to propagate false news, postings that spread dissension, that are often spread mechanically and in massive volumes by what's called a bot. Russian sources of such false messaging posing as news is a current story in the USA, of course.

     Some in church circles have maintained that Christians have no business participating in media where so much vitriol, untruth and half-truth is mixed in with what is genuinely posted as news, that they will be caught up in the emotional controversies that lies and deceptions are meant to foster.

     That there's a danger there is indisputable; if your thread to the core of your being—an attachment to Jesus Christ himself and a commitment to discipleship—breaks, certainly your focus may stray to who-knows-what. There's plenty out there that craves our attention, that is fishing for our allegiance . . . daily, even hourly.

     And we have to admit: being committed to Christ doesn't mean that we lose all gullibility, or our weakness in the area of believing whatever matches our biases. I'd be the first to admit that separating fact from propaganda has always been and remains, for me, a constant challenge. I want my side to win as much as does the next guy, and that makes me vulnerable to even the blaring half-truths propagated on social media.

     But, I have Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram accounts and try to discipline myself to brief interactions with them. I'm not completely comfortable with this; guilt around the amount of time taken to seek out the uplifting among the dross feels a lot like wasteful self-indulgence at times. Behavioural Psychology predicts that any experience involving rewards that come unpredictably and intermittently will have the power to create an addiction. Browsing endlessly in Facebook, Twitter for anything that's "surprisingly-interesting" is exactly that.

     On the other hand, if Christ's Way withdraws its influence from the social media sphere, where then will the hope for its betterment come from? Where the world is broken—or breaking—is exactly where the gospel needs to go. “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13, NIV) 

     Many Disciples of Christ have gotten muddy, bloody and been martyred in pursuit of wooing strife and misery to repentance and the grasping of a new, a better, life. To bringing justice and mercy to a broken humanity. But today, many who call themselves Christian behave like saints in church, practice there a piety they seemingly abandon on the internet.

      If you and I are to be participants in social media, and if our commitment to Biblical precepts is clear (“to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God,”¹ and “now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. ²) it seems right that our behaviours on SM shouldn't be an exception. Loving mercy, doing justice and practicing love wasn't meant for just “in church,” was it?

     For subsequent posts, I hope to gather and share helpful wisdom on social media participation for those who recognize that the technology is here to stay and that its presence will only expand as time goes by. If you've already gathered some of the wisdom that's out there, I'd be happy to hear from you; comments can be made at the end of this post.  

     The preacher says in Ecclesiastes, “much study is a weariness of the flesh,” but Paul's letter to Timothy cited above admonishes us, nevertheless, to “get as smart as we can” on things that matter.

1Micah 6:8

21 Corinthians 13:13