The modern Christian’s dependence on social media for cultural engagement may be our greatest failure to this generation.
We can all point to the value of social media, so I won’t take time to do that here. What I am contending, however, is that social media has become the tool of choice for the armchair public Christians who assume posting a sound bite is the equivalent of being a Gospel witness.
The modern Christian’s dependence on social media for cultural engagement may be our greatest failure to this generation.
We’ve been lured into the laziness of making declarations without considering how our words distract or advance our primary calling to make disciples of Jesus.
In this third part of series I’ve entitled “Aren’t You Against Pornography in Schools?” I want to propose “Communication Integrity” onto the palette along with the first daub of “Virtue of Persuasion,” and the second, “Incarnational Responsibility.”
What is Communication Integrity?
By “Communication Integrity,” I’m referring to a commitment to communicate in public square with a consistency that moves others to see Jesus as altogether glorious—worthy of our worship and deserving of our trust in Him to reconcile us to God and to restore all things to Himself.
If you’re new to this series of articles, a man approached me a few weeks ago and asked in the context of a larger conversation, “Aren’t you against pornography in schools?” While my answer to that question should be obvious, what he was really getting at without even knowing it is the question of how Christians do good in public.
This series of articles is designed to help answer that question. So, l’ll frame this daub called “Communication Integrity” with these four statements:
Communication integrity trades sound bites for sincere conversations.
Clarity on cultural issues is important, but in age of scrolling social media feeds, Christians are bent to find a soapbox, stand on it for the time it takes to type a post, and then keep scrolling. It’s a hit-and-run approach. We distinguish ourselves by our position on an issue, largely absent of a gospel witness, which turns us into moral behaviorists.
We must make arguments from natural law. We must contend for moral common sense, but to engage in the public square with integrity, we do so with Gospel intentionality. We communicate truth in the context of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration offering real answers and lasting hope to those who will listen.
We communicate truth in the context of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration offering real answers and lasting hope to those who will listen.
So, instead of depending on making posts, we seek out meaningful conversations that turn into Gospel conversations. We are winsome, but not casual. We are pointed, but not so brief that context is lost.
Communication integrity trades “gotchas” for “getchas.”
Apart from Christ, we are lost. Lostness creates all kinds of brokenness, including intellectual and moral brokenness. So, it’s not unexpected to find significant faults in the arguments or positions of people who are not in Christ.
The sexuality and gender conversation, for example, is full of nonsensical and destructive ideologies, which we must engage well and expose as faulty.
But our goal is not to simply catch someone in a bad argument proving how wrong they are and how right we are. Playing “gotcha” is bad gospel witness. Instead, what would happen if we pursued “getcha” instead of “gotcha?” What if we sat down for a conversation and asked sincere questions? What would happen if we sought to understand a person before we sought to set them straight?
What would happen if we pursued “getcha” instead of “gotcha?”
Perhaps our words make more sense to people when they know we are first listening to theirs.
Communication integrity trades mocking dissenters for making disciples.
I’m a lighthearted guy who enjoys heavy doses of sarcasm, but making serious fun of an ideological or theological opponent is anti-Christian. Changing your voice inflection to mimic your perception of another person, making light of a person’s destructive lifestyle, or making fodder on a person’s worst moment are no way to represent Jesus in the public square.
There are a number of reasons for me saying this. First, when the Pharisees wanted to publicly humiliate the woman caught in adultery, Jesus called anyone without sin to cast the first stone. We are all capable of anything, including sinful thinking and foolish comments. Humility calls us to measure our judgments.
Second, before we were sinners, we were image bearers of the Most High God. That means every person deserves our respect. Someone recently asked me if a Hindu was allowed to pray at a public function, would I stand in respect or walk out in protest. My response was that before the Hindu was a Hindu, he was a human. Jesus tells me to love my friends and my enemies.
Before we were sinners, we were image bearers of the Most High God.
Third, how we talk about people in public trains other people to do the same and more. When influential people are jerks online, that gives everyone else permission to be jerks too. When we show disrespect in one moment, our followers exaggerate their disrespect in all of their moments. We may get a dopamine hit from all the likes from are harsh criticisms, but feeding our addiction for approval does little to advance the cause the Christ.
Communication integrity trades moral syncretism for hermeneutical clarity.
Those are big words, especially for me, but they are important. Syncretism is the weaving of things together. “Moral syncretism” is the weaving of all moral issues together assuming one moral evil, for example, is all moral evils. It’s true that sin is sin, and even the “smallest” sin separates us from God. But not all sins carry the same weight or have equal consequences. Nor are all sinners sinning in the same way for the same reasons.
And then I’m using “hermeneutical clarity” to speak to the Christian’s responsibility to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). If it’s true that “if all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail,” then lazy hermeneutics is a wrecking ball in the public square.
If Christians have any hope of influencing people to follow Jesus with us, we must avoid half-baked Christian-ish cliches, and instead learn to bring the Bible to bear on the actual sinfulness and foolishness that so easily entangle and bind the human heart.
If Christians have any hope of influencing people to follow Jesus with us, we must avoid half-baked Christian-ish cliches, and instead learn to bring the Bible to bear on the actual sinfulness and foolishness that so easily entangle and bind the human heart.
So, before you quote that Bible verse, do your homework. Make sure you say what the Bible says, how the Bible says it, and to the end the Bible says it.
And Finally,
Am I against porn in schools? You bet. But I’m also against Christians delivering the glorious riches of Christ to a broken world in a brown paper bag. The Gospel is worth more than that, and so are the souls of our neighbors.
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EVERYONE’S WILSON | THE EVERYONE’S WELCOME NETWORK
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