Digital Wasteland

It seems, to me, that most social media is becoming a wasteland where you have to filter through trash ads, political takes disconnected from reality, and the delusions of the continuously online. To be honest, I probably spend more time than I should online, but I work to ground myself by doing simple things. Standing quietly and looking at a tree for a bit reminds me of what reality is. People watching works for me too.

Disunity in Faith

Lately, it’s gotten worse though. Most, not all, of my social media interaction is based either on family, friends, and my faith. The faith-based interactions have taken a troubling turn over the past year or so. There’s a conflict raging between two loose groups. Group one defines itself by labelling the other side Christian Nationalist, woke right, or other names. The other side defines itself by laughing at group one and then going about their business. It’s much deeper and far more complex than that but my intention isn’t to delve into the complexities that led to this point.

No, my goal here is to express my disappointment in the first group. Largely, I would identify with much of what they hold to be true. Hitler was bad. It’s okay to be an ally with Israel. An inter-racial marriage isn’t sinful. So, it’s not their values that disappoint, I don’t think. Maybe as time goes on it will turn out to be that their values are in conflict with mine. It’s their apparent lack of ability to think rightly and see the world correctly. Something skews their perception and for the life of me, I don’t get it.

A group of younger men are gaining influence simply by stating their positions unapologetically, and PhD holding men with long-time ministries spend their time crying and calling those young men childish, neo-Nazis, racist, etc. Somehow, these older men, who should know better, think their name calling is okay. They don’t get how foolish it makes them look. Their non-stop caterwauling is every bit as annoying as the cat that shows up every night at midnight to yeowl all night long outside your window. Enough already.

Suggestion

Maybe, rather than crying and whinging on about it, sit back and try to understand what is happening. Maybe take your supposed belief that God is sovereign over everything and contemplate that He is allowing or even causing this. Then maybe ponder Gamaliel’s warning to the Sanhedrin. I mean, that’s in the Bible. Is there any other stuff in God’s Word that might help?

If only God had given us guidance here. Can Christians be different and have different roles? Can they be one while still being like, I don’t know, a human body? Maybe some are like the eyes and provide information to help navigate the body while others are like the feet and stomp through the mud and dust of culture. Something, like that would have been helpful.

I write this knowing they’ll probably never see it and if they do, they’ll dismiss it as only so much grumbling from the rabble that don’t have their theological degrees or the proper high-mindedness to be taken seriously. That’s the part that’s most disappointing, they’re old enough (and should be wise enough), to know better. Scolding them isn’t working and in case you haven’t figured it out yet, it won’t work.

These older Christian men should be able to rise above the noise and find unity in our shared values and service to our Master.