Monday Morning Quarterback – Encouraging God’s people to be responsible, encouraging and uplifting in their use of social media.
One of the negative impacts of social media on our society is that anyone who knows how to communicate well is automatically accepted as an expert, or at least as someone to be followed and quoted. In truth, maybe all they really need is an opinion that happens to fit well with other people’s in order to get followed. There are no credentials necessary. There is no life experience necessary. Credibility is “earned” merely by being a particularly gifted or innovative communicator. That notion is both refreshing and scary at the same time. And nowhere is it becoming more of a nuisance than in the church.
Last week’s Christian social media posts were filled with comments about World Vision’s President, Richard Stearns’ comment to Christianity Today that his organization would now be willing to hire legally married gay couples to work there, and then the organization’s subsequent quick reversal of that decision. As you might imagine, Facebook posts and blog posts (and Christ-followers’ comments on both) lit up the internet. No surprise…it was just the next in what has become a long series of school-yard brawls around LGBT issues within the church. They always draw a crowd. And, of course, the damage to the church is immeasurable. You can hear the chorus of those outside the church: “And THAT is why I will never go to church again.”
Terrific.
There are a lot of reasons why Christ-followers are going to be on opposite sides of the LGBT issues for some time to come…too many reasons to get into here. Maybe we will explore all those reasons in other posts. In the meantime, it is this Christian mediator’s professional opinion that agreement on all the issues is not going to happen within the church in my lifetime, and perhaps not in my children’s lifetime either. There are just too many forces both within the church and especially from outside the church to allow for agreement. Political and social agendas have hijacked these issues, making genuine agreement impossible.
The question, then, which we must answer (and quickly) is how we can live together within the church while disagreeing so strongly on these issues. How do we even converse? How do we minister side by side? How do we worship together? How do we learn at least some modicum of mutual respect for each other’s positions in order to be able to co-exist? Maybe in the final analysis, all of these questions can be summed up in one poignant question which begs our full focus and attention: In our conversations around these issues, what does love look like?
We know that is the right question. I know that we know it, because we all keep assuring each other that we are speaking the truth in love. We all talk about how much we love the people on the other side of these issues from us, though we strongly disagree with them. But based on so many of the comments I saw last week from folks whom I know to be Christ-followers, I’m just not convinced that all of us are the “lovers” we profess to be. If love has something to do with meeting the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of our brother, I am just not convinced that we are all truly spending much time really loving those on the other side of these issues from us.
And so it is from this place of frustration and fear for the church’s testimony that I propose a simple fix: the church needs “love credentials”. These are not credentials you can get from a seminary or from a Bible college…all the studying and reading in the world will not earn these credentials. And they are not credentials even a local church can offer…sad but true. The credentials I propose are only available and can only be earned from one source: people on the other side of the argument from me. I propose that, before I publish a comment or a tweet or a blog post talking about how much I really do love “those people” even though I disagree strongly with them, I should be able to point to two or three or four of them who will attest to that fact…just a handful of people on the other side of the argument who will all testify that, yes, I really have loved them well. These credentials are earned by sitting face to face with people whom I love on the other side of these issues and actually listening to them and understanding their concerns, their feelings…because that’s what love looks like.
That will be my credentials test from now on. Have we had this conversation face to face with people on the other side of these issues who will vouch for our “love” for them? I am just not going to waste any more of my time reading posts from people on either side of this issue for whom I cannot find those credentials. But much more importantly, I won’t be posting my own positions or opinions on these issues either, until I have first had the conversation with friends whom I know disagree with me and have assured myself they will vouch for me. It seems to me I have some credentials to earn.
How about you? Ready to earn yours? BEFORE you publish that post?