Truth and Love in a Social Media Age
I’ve been on social media for a long time. My parents love when I post pictures of my kids. I have had great moments of discovery when re-connecting with a long-lost friend. I have seen churches leverage social media for real and genuine Kingdom impact. I also have seen the other side, and I’m sure you have too. Someone posts something. Someone else disagrees. Comments start respectful but turn towards anger and name-calling. People are de-friended virtually and, in some cases, this extends to people being de-friended in real life as well.
As Kingdom leaders one of the most difficult elements of social media is that our people are constantly bombarded with news and opinions, many of which are based on half-truths and non-objective reporting. We all are bombarded with this as well. Some things that seem true today will be untrue tomorrow as more facts are revealed and more evidence is found. I have witnessed this happen time and time again on both sides of the political spectrum. As citizens whose first citizenship belongs to the Kingdom of God I have been wondering how to hold onto truth in this social media age while also desperately clinging to the love that Christ gives us and calls us to give to others.
As much as we might think this is a new challenge, in his sermon on being as wise as serpents and as humble as doves entitled “A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart”, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reveals that this type of challenge has been happening for a long time. Almost 60 years ago King wrote:
“This prevalent tendency towards soft mindedness is found in man’s unbelievable gullibility. Take our attitude toward advertisement. We are so easily led to purchase a product because a television or radio advertisement pronounces it better than any other. Advertisers have long since learned that most people are soft minded, and they capitalize on this susceptibility with skillful and effective slogans.
This undue gullibility is also seen in the tendency of many readers to accept the printed word of the press as final truth. Few people realize that even our authentic channels of information – the press, the platform and in many instances the pulpit – do not give us objective and unbiased truth. Few people have the toughness of mind to judge critically and to discern the true from false, the fact from the fiction. Our minds are constantly being invaded by legions of half-truths, prejudices, and false facts. One of the great needs of mankind is to be lifted above the morass of false propaganda.”
The first practice I would like to encourage for us in the social media age is to dig deep, do hard work, and judge critically to discern the true from the false before drawing a specific conclusion on a given topic. I have found that I don’t have time to do this for every topic, so I am getting more and more comfortable saying that I haven’t been able to do enough research to have an opinion on every topic that people are posting things about. On topics that are important to me and my community, I have found that it is important to read from a variety of sources to as well as to talk directly to people that might be close to the situation to try and discern truth from falsehood.
King doesn’t stop his sermon there, but goes on to talk about how we must not only be tough minded but also we must be tender hearted. King argues that there is another side to the calling of Jesus. We must not just hold on to truth but also must be extravagant in our love for people who disagree with us and who the world would consider to be our enemies. He says: “Jesus reminds us that the good life combines the toughness of the serpent and the tenderness of the dove. To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish. To have dovelike without serpentlike qualities is to be sentimental, anemic, and aimless. We must combine strongly marked antitheses.”
A practice Jesus gives us in becoming tender hearted, or dovelike, is found in Matthew 5:44. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” To me this is one of the solutions to discipleship in the social media age. Instead of letting outrage at what someone posted move you to anger, instead let it move you to prayer. When someone expresses their anger to you at something that was posted, ask if they have taken time to pray for that person. This is a straightforward and very applicable command of Jesus for our day. I have found as I pray for people I am able to better engage them out of a heart of love and compassion instead of a heart of anger.
What practices are you using to be a better disciple of Jesus in this social media age? How are you leading and encouraging your people to hold on to what is true while also growing in love? People who we lead are being discipled by social media. By engaging them with tools and training on how to bring the work of Jesus to bear on how they are processing relationships and information on social media we are doing real Kingdom of God work. This sermon quoted above from Dr. King is from a collection of sermons in the book entitled Strength to Love.
Kyle Magstadt
Associate Superintendent for Church Multiplication
North Central District of The C&MA