We are losing the ability to talk with each other. More importantly, we are losing the ability to be shaped by others.
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If Jack doesn’t like the way Jill has commented on his post, he deletes the comment or blocks her. Jack sends and accepts friend requests and publishes public posts, but then effectively plugs his ears when people try to engage him publicly.
In Jack’s mind, social media is like his living room. Only, his friends don’t normally find out what goes on in his living room unless they are invited into it and they choose to enter it. Social media is more accurately like going to the market or strolling the promenade.
If Jack had his own private page, it might be more like his living room. Even then, it would be better for him to think of it as an event he’s hosting. Sure it’s “private,” but it’s been opened to the public. He can set ground rules for entering the event; but he is still functioning in a public setting, not the privacy of his own home.
When it comes to his main profile account, however, his friends see everything he publishes whether they requested that kind of interaction or not. After all, that’s probably why he published it: he wanted people to see it. And he is leveraging his friendship with them as a platform for airing his thoughts.
If Jack wants people to see what he says, he needs to let them respond to it.
Social media creates an allusion of privacy while being still very much public. Jack feels safer expressing himself in ways he never would in front of a crowd of ten or twenty people, yet the reality is he is expressing himself in front of hundreds of people. If he isn’t open to their feedback, he is effectively demanding a one-way relationship with them.
Jack might say something that is wrong. He might reveal sinful attitudes or erroneous doctrines he holds. If others speak to that, he ought to let them shape him.
To simply delete their comment or block them insulates himself from any sort of accountability. And Jack, like all of us, lives in a time where people—even Christians—increasingly refuse accountability.
In moments of being held accountable, many of us go on the attack.
Our comment threads are filled with ad hominem attacks instead of constructive dialogue. And just in case you’re like me and didn’t know what “ad hominem” meant before someone used it, an “ad hominem” attack is when someone directs their disagreement or disapproval directly at a person instead of the idea they are conveying or the position they hold.
Jack says: “I think it’s dangerous how many people believe the election was stolen. Over and over again, the claims of a rigged election are proven to be false.”
Jill responds: “Well, you must only be listening to mainstream media. There’s a LOT they aren’t talking about.”
Jill just used an “ad hominem” attack.
Instead of interacting with the idea that the claims of a rigged election are getting proven false and countering with specific evidence that there is more to the story and offering an articulated reason for why Jack should be careful not to wrongly judge people believing the election was stolen, Jill assumed he got his information from mainstream media and that he only held such a view because that’s all he listened to. In actuality, Jack doesn’t listen to mainstream media. Jack has heard primarily from conservative journalists and commentators who sympathize more with the party who lost the election than they do with the party who won. Conservatives express concern about people believing the election was stolen, not merely “mainstream media,” whoever that refers to. Instead of interacting around the ideas and perspectives Jack expressed, Jill went straight for Jack himself.
After all, in Jill’s mind, if Jack really did listen to mainstream media, it would prove him not credible. She wouldn’t have to consider what he said and allow it to shape her own perspective.
Her mind had been made up before Jack had a chance to explain himself.
What if Jack is on to something? is Jill open to changing her mind?
If Jack is off, can Jill find a respectful and thoughtful way to nudge him to reconsider?
What if Jill does? Is Jack open to changing his mind?
Few of us enter an article, comment thread, or conversation open to changing our minds. And a willingness to be shaped is foundational to all constructive conversation. No one person has the authority on knowledge, truth, or what the Spirit of God is saying.
Do we have the capacity for speaking boldly in a gentle way?
Do we have the humility for recognizing when someone else has offered a perspective in response to whatever we said boldly that is worth causing us to reconsider what we said?
Or do we only have the capacity for personal attacks and closing people off?
I’ve recently been reflecting on Paul’s usage of his common greeting or signature, “Grace and peace.”
Galatians 1:3 says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ..” Even reading it now gives me the sensation of being given the opportunity to catch my breath. It’s calming. Soul-touching, even.
What’s remarkable about Galatians is that Paul goes on to give one of the most scathing rebukes he has ever given in a letter. He basically tells them they’ve embraced a false Gospel. Wouldn’t you like to see what kind of comment thread that lit up?
He begins 1 Corinthians in a similar manner: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3). And this is the letter where he calls the Corinthians “infants” (see 1Co. 3:1)!
Paul did not hold back from rigorous exhortation. In the book of Acts, we even get the picture that Paul held his own in debates (Acts 15:2, 17:16-34).
But it wasn’t about winning an argument, for Paul. It wasn’t about a feeling of radicalness he got by saying things people took issue with. For Paul, one thing motivated him: building people up in Christ (Col. 2:6-7, Ro. 15:13, Eph. 1:15-23).
“Grace and peace” meant something from Paul because he sought to embody it in the way he lived and taught.
It wasn’t a tag on, as if to get the one-up on whoever he was debating by sounding a little more pious. It was his front-and-center, his compass for navigating discourse.
The goal of all of Paul’s instruction was ultimately love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith (1Tim. 1:5). Paul saw “grace and peace” as the medium through which this goal would get accomplished.
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I know what it’s like to feel frustrated with people. There have been many comments I’d rather delete than take the time to interact with. Sadly, there have been far too many times where I did interact, but in a way where I let my impatience and frustration get the better of me.
And you know what? I still feel to this day that in each of those times the commenter was wrong. Isn’t that how it is? Isn’t that why we justify ungodly responses to each other?
Well, they’re wrong! I’m not going to back down and allow it to look like they are right.
Many times, the person we are frustrated by is in the wrong. Ungodly responses are most dangerous when the content of the response is truer than what they are responding to.
But regardless of what the other person is saying or how they are saying it, if I am not being patient, kind, or gentle I am giving an ungodly response.
If we are truly people walking in the Spirit, our discourse will be filled with “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22).
If our discourse is not filled with the fruit of the Spirit, we are not walking by the Spirit. At least not in that moment.
I have tried to make it right with people every time I’ve been convicted about my interactions with them. Nevertheless, I am sure there have been people I’ve missed. If you have ever come away from communicating with me and not felt the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, I am truly sorry. And if there is a particular interaction we have had that bothers you and we haven’t discussed it, please know that I care about it and you are free to approach me about it.
I took some time off from social media this summer because it was affecting my mental health. I’m still not sure exactly how to handle the trolls, those who continually give ad hominem attacks instead of interacting with the ideas or positions being discussed.
I think it’s fair to unfollow people at times. If we find ourselves constantly arguing with them in our minds, we probably don’t need to see what they say every day.
And as someone who hosts a specific Facebook Page and a couple of Facebook Groups, I will block or ban people who continually refuse to honor the guidelines of the Page or Group. Part of why I’ve started doing this is that I’ve discovered other people who do interact thoughtfully no longer felt safe interacting on my Page because of how the comment threads tended to get filled up with people who merely wanted to argue, not dialogue. I’ve started guarding the environment of my Facebook Page and blog carefully. Largely because I want people to feel safe.
I want readers to feel the grace and peace of Jesus and be spurred into a deeper love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.
But I do not block people without warning them first. I appeal to them to change the way they are interacting before simply cutting them off. I don’t know if that’s the right way to go about it—it’s just how I would want to be treated, and that seemed like a reasonable enough explanation.
It concerns me how quickly we are willing to delete comments or block people without any dialogue back and forth. Sometimes we’ve gone so far as to make it Spiritual: “I sense something off in your Spirit.”
I’ve concluded, and I could be wrong, that people say such things to others because they feel a need to justify in their minds the rather ungodly response they are about to give.
I think we’ve all felt misunderstood enough online to know deep in our hearts that we probably can’t very accurately sense the spirit of a person through our perception of how they used a keyboard.
And this is why I’ve started signing as often as I remember to, “Grace and peace.”
When I near the end of a comment and go to write “grace and peace,” I’m forced to reckon with whether I demonstrated grace and peace in the way I commented. If my comment was chiding, “grace and peace” is only going to sound pious. So what sinful attitude in my own heart do I need to repent of, and how can I communicate a similar thought that actually feels gracious and peaceful instead of chiding?
“Grace and peace” serve as a built-in accountability check. It has led me to rewrite many a comment before ever hitting Enter. It has provoked me to confess my own hardness of heart and acknowledge my own limitations and my need for giving brothers and sisters in Christ the space to ask questions, push back, and ultimately shape at least the way in which I deliver content, if not the content itself.
Sometimes people don’t like what I’ve written. I used to think that’s why people attacked me or criticized the way in which I wrote. And while that probably is true at times, I’m discovering that often—whether their criticism is fair or not—I can learn something from their spiel that will make me better as an author, communicator, or even as a person.
I think this is true for all of us, not just authors.
In fact, truthfully, if we have social media and interact on it through written posts or comments, we are offering ourselves as authors. We are likely going to say things that are sometimes just plain wrong. We are also likely going to have people respond to us, at times, in ways that are just plain wrong.
How are we going to respond in those moments?
Are we coming with a heart posture that embodies the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ?
Is our part of the discourse filled with the fruit of the Spirit?
I’ve pondered writing this article for some time, now. Before I even took my social media fast this summer. To be honest, I kicked the can down the road a bit because I knew that the moment I wrote about it publicly meant I would begin to be evaluated by it publicly. I wasn’t sure I was ready for quite that much accountability.
Now I am.
In fact, I would suggest the world is hungry for people to be willing to have this kind of accountability in their online interactions. People are hungry to see Christians actually live by the Spirit and not just talk about living by it.
As my brother recently said, “I am a strong advocate for peace. Nobody flourishes in unrest.”
Cynicism, sarcasm, mockery, strife, and unrest have for too long described the average Christian discourse on social media. Don’t you think it’s time that grace and peace do instead?
Would you be willing to join me in signing our discourse with “grace and peace” as a way of reminding ourselves about our compass for navigating challenging conversations?
Feel free to share your responses to this article in the comments below. Please be respectful to each other as you do. Grace and peace.
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