Nothing reveals the health of a culture more than how well people disagree with each other.
And this is especially true within local communities. This is why terms like community cohesion and social capital have become important because they describe a vital sense of relational connection and commonality that humans need. Its why we call an area a ‘neighbourhood’.
Insidious
Over the last 20 years the online world has enhanced some of these connections by offering countless new ways that people interact and organise themselves. But in other ways, online connectivity has helped destroy community and increase isolation.
And the influence of social media on public debate has become insidious. It has not given us neutral platforms on which issues can be openly discussed. It has shaped, warped and toxified how we disagree.
”If it enrages, it engages’
Nothing has illustrated this more than the death of Charlie Kirk. Due to social media, it may turn out to be one of the most significant assassinations in political history.
In a brilliant video about responses to Charlie Kirk’s death, Glen Scrivener said this (see the link to video at end of article):
“We live in social media silos in which you have a curated news feed. You do not just have an alternative world view, alternative tastes, but there are alternative facts out there…and this sense of fracture is being algorithmically hyper-charged in this moment…the most fringe views get amplified because if it enrages, it engages.”
‘Two realities’
Similarly, Bekah Legg, who leads Restored which campaigns against violence against women, wrote a superb article titled Charlie Kirk: A separation of Realities:
“Two realities are running in parallel, facilitated by the algorithms of social media. Algorithms that most of us don’t understand but which silently control our lives through the content we consume.
Some of us in the Christian world have been fed news about Charlie Kirk that revealed his darker side: misogyny, white supremacy, nationalism and homophobia. Others had a heartier meal of gospel preaching, smiles and reaching young people in debate, not violence. We literally have two different versions of Charlie Kirk. Both are based in reality, but neither give the whole picture.”
The choice
Social media is not interested in giving the whole picture. Its algorithms are designed to do the opposite: to stoke rage and self-righteousness. Why? Because anger is addictive: its keeps us fearful, keeps us consuming and makes millions for the tech giants who control it.
As John Mark Comer puts it in Practicing the Way:
“I hate to break it to you but you are being controlled by your addiction to your phone…Choose your own constraints, or they will be chosen for you, not by the Spirit of God stirring your own heart toward love, but by a programmer in Silicon Valley working to steal your time and shape your behaviour.”
Charlie Kirk’s tragic death presents us all with a choice: do we use it to deepen the polarisation of public debate further, or as an opportunity to expose the warping effect of social media?
Our response
I believe our response to this choice lies in both resistance and renewal (the original name for this blog). We need to resist online divisiveness and also be renewed by real life community.
Resistance. Let’s resist the lure of divisive online arguments and the self-righteousness it provokes. If people get riled up in response to something sensible you have shared, then choose to listen, ask questions and seek to understand. Shouting them down will achieve little. Stoking online rage is to feed a beast which doesn’t care about real life. All it wants to do is to keep you spending time online.
Renewal. Commit to spending time with diverse people in real life. Be humble, listen to their views, be part of embodied community. Talk to your neighbours. Do stuff together: be committed to activity which brings people together: sport, volunteering, socialising. Build respect for those who see the world differently.
Encourage your children to do the same. Are we too worried about the physical dangers our children face locally, and not concerned enough about the emotional dangers they face online?
Proximity matters
These are some of the reasons I love being part of a deeply diverse church. We gather together as a community with those of different ethnicities, ages, class, politics and vastly different views on many subjects (including theology).
But we come together as a family who humbly seek God together: to find healing, purpose, forgiveness and true meaning in following Jesus Christ. When it comes to faith, proximity matters, community matters. What can be done in person can only partially be done online.
We do not need more self-righteousness and judgement in our lives. But we do need to humbly accept more divine love. As Glen Scrivener puts it:
“Instead of an online world where I am trying to look good in the presence of judgement, I can come to church and look bad in the presence of love.”
Please watch Glen Scrivener’s excellent video 6 Lies We’re Being Fed Right Now:
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Powerful post, Jon, and thank you for sharing Glen Scrivener’s video. More and more I come to believe that the only way to overcome the machine and retrieve/rescue our humanity is through faith. Indeed, it would seem that the loss of faith, and faith communities over the past century has played a major part in how the world has shaped itself today. Yet it is not too late.
“Choose your own constraints, or they will be chosen for you”. Is an ideal, for sure, but one very challenging to meet—especially in guiding our children towards. Hope springs eternal, and knowing there are Christians in the world who care, and take action is greatly reassuring. It’s why I come to this blog—and why I attempt to make it known to others.
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Thanks Tobias – much appreciated.
And, as an example, I really appreciated the honest and respectful way that you and Tim discussed your previous post. For me it is a model of how to discuss such a sensitive and complex matter.
Thanks for your continued encouragement!
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Thanks Jon and the contributors to this post – really good stuff, which I can very much relate to. Given my diverse friendships, roles and interests I have both inside and outside the church, the opinions, takes and responses which were presented through my social media feed following last week’s horrific murder (and not to mention all the other divisive news items local, national and international) very much echo Glen’s video and what has been highlighted in the blog.
Given what I view and read across different platforms, my feeds swing from one extreme to another and lots in between, and for that I am at least grateful.
Your blogs help me very much to navigate these choppy and sometimes shark-infested waters. Wisdom is deciding when to engage and when not to, so as not to flame situations but also to challenge in a Christ-like manner. Engagement and keeping channels open is important but I find is best done on a face to face basis.
Keep up the good work Jon and all your contributors. Following a house move from one end of the country to the other, and as my wife and I discern which church God wants us to belong to, having the continuity of your balanced and nuanced reflections is most welcome. Am just about to tuck into Stephen’s book too.
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Thanks Ian – much appreciated – that’s great feedback and very encouraging.
And glad you are reading Stephen’s book!
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