Christians on Social Media

We were not designed by our wise and loving Creator to live alone. We were made to live in a vibrant vertical and horizontal community. Fellowship with God and with others is an essential ingredient in our spiritual health and proper living. Independence is a seductive delusion that never takes us anywhere good. Look where the quest for independence took Adam and Eve. The religion of the Old and New Testaments is foundationally and practically relational. God, who himself is a community, crafted those made in his image to live in community with him and one another. Healthy, mutually loving, and mutually serving relationships are not a human luxury—they are a human necessity. To be human is to be a social being. This means that isolated, self-sufficient, and independent living is not just a denial of my spirituality; it is also a denial of my humanity.

This is why the antisocial behavior on social media is so harmful and alarming. The powerfully influential culture found online denies the Creator’s design and, because it does, cannot ultimately work. It cannot be constructive. It will be destructive. It is a denial of the mutual love and mutual dependency that is the soil in which healthy living grows. Hateful takedowns are never posted by someone who is committed to ongoing relationship and healthy mutual edification. This reactive culture puts a higher value in securing a hit than it does on the person taking the hit. A hunt for the next good shot is never where “love your neighbor as yourself” will take you. The person finding joy in taking down another person has about as much commitment to loving relationships as the hunter has to the duck he is hunting. This is a sad deconstructing of life as the Creator designed it to be: me in relationship to you, together in relationship to God. A community.

Sin devalues relationships for the glory of self. Sin always ends up harming our relationships in some way. Look what sin did to Adam and Eve’s relationship. Consider the horrible fruit of sin in the relationship of their sons, Cain and Abel. Imagine I am angry at you because of something you said and in my anger I get up so close to you that you can feel my breath, while I say inflammatory, accusatory, and hurtful things about you. What are you thinking at that moment? I doubt you’re thinking, “Paul loves me so much. This is so helpful. I am learning so much. I wish he would do this more.” No, you are crushed, and all you want to do is get away and out from under the onslaught. As I’m up in your face, I’m not forming a relationship with you; I am harming whatever relationship we have. You are not listening to me. You are not learning from me. You are not feeling grateful for me. You are not hoping to engage me further. Nothing constructive results. Neither person is better because of the encounter. Why would we think getting up in a person’s face via a screen and a social media post would have a different result?

If the aim of the religion of Christianity is love out of a pure heart, then much of the Christianity on social media is false religion. It may be theologically knowledgeable and biblically literate, but it is the religion of the Pharisees. It is a culture of pride, self-righteousness, and legalism. It binds burdens on people rather than helping them bear their burdens. It is accusatory and condemning rather than loving and forgiving. It mocks those considered less righteous or not as theologically informed. It hunts for reasons to judge and finds joy in disrespectful, cruel attacks. It lacks the kind words of a tender heart. It professes a love for truth but is really driven by a love of self. It is obsessed with its own voice, while seldom listening very well.

A Christian media culture that does not regularly exhibit the fruit of the spirit is actually Pharisaism, that is, the kingdom of self masquerading as the kingdom of God. On his way to the cross, the strongest words Jesus spoke were to those who promoted such a culture (see Matt. 23). Humbling, rescuing, forgiving, and transforming grace doesn’t produce independent, relationship-harming, proud, disrespectful toxicity. It produces the opposite.

I don’t think I am particularly naive, but I am regularly shocked by the manner at which “Christians” talk to one another online. I am regularly dismayed at the disrespectful reactions to spiritual leaders. I am not saying we should never post questions to our leaders or engage them in a respectful conversation or even de- bate with them. But when I read, “Dude, just quit tweeting,” or “Bro, just shut up,” or “______ just get back in the kitchen and bake something,” or “You can be in ministry and still be stupid,” I get heartsick for the church of Jesus Christ and for the state of its culture. We were made to live in loving community with one another where we grow to know God and his truth in union with one another. Anything that harms this community harms us, stunts our growth, and moves us away from the life Jesus died to make possible for us.

As I was thinking of the current independent, relationship-devaluing Christian social media culture, I thought of the words of Paul at the end of Ephesians 3. This statement is the capstone of his discussion of the theology of the grace of Jesus Christ: “That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17–19). Paul is saying that the hermeneutic of the gospel is a community project. We will fully comprehend the redeeming magnitude of the love of God only when we are developing our understanding in community with other believers. Gospel theology is never developed independently. Practical, transformational gospel understanding is a community project. The gospel is only ever fully known in the context of humble, approachable, and mutually dependent relationships with other believers. Any behavior that harms those relationships harms our potential for fully understanding truths that so desperately need to be known.

Charismatic believers need conversation with Reformed believers and vice versa. Baptist and Presbyterian believers need to be able to talk respectfully and listen humbly to one another. Politically conservative believers need to talk with those who are not so conservative. Leaders need to be in conversation with those who are not leaders. Young and old believers need to be able to communicate with one another. White believers and Black believers need to be in gospel conversation with one another. Our communication needs to cross racial, ethnic, political, age, gender, and doctrinal lines. We are not a collection of individuals. We are not an assemblage of tribes, but rather we are one in Christ. Any reaction that does not value the unity of this community harms the very thing that is essential for the gospel to be understood by our minds, embraced by our hearts, and bear fruit in our lives. Toxic reactivity is the enemy of true Christianity because it damages the community that true Christianity holds dear.

Repudiation of proud, independent, and antisocial Christianity that loves winning more than loving must begin with a willingness in each of us to confess and repent of instances when we have taken part in this culture that has moved so far from what God has designed. There is a better way, and grace makes it possible.

Excerpted from Reactivity by Paul David Tripp, ©2022. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Paul David Tripp
Paul David Tripphttps://www.paultripp.com/

Paul David Tripp is a pastor, author and international conference speaker. He is also the president of Paul Tripp Ministries. 

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