Dramatic title! Let me explain

I’m coming to the end of a wonderful two week holiday with my family and friends. Its been wonderful, a precious time. However over the past couple of days I’ve been unsettled, a little irritable, not quite myself. I found it hard to put my finger on why – there were a couple of silly tasky things I had to sort, which I don’t like having to do when I’m on holiday, but that wasn’t it. It was more than that.

Then it hit me.

While we were on our holidays the overturning of Roe vs Wade happened in the USA. Abortion would no longer be something that was legal from a central government stand point, but instead would be legislated at state government level. I, like many, realised how momentous this was. Since it was announced I’d been reading news reports, reactions, and more specifically reading tweet threads from people on all sides of the debate.

That’s why I’ve been off a little – to be honest its been horrific reading

I’m not trying to offer an opinion on the serious topic at hand. My comment is around how many people on all sides have been treating each other online. It has sickened me. Name calling, accusations, demonisation, posturing, religious triumphalism, insensitivity, and any other word we’d like to add. Of course there have been voices of reason, compassion, and balance in there too, but they have been drowned out by the shouting. It leaves me asking a serious question.

What on earth is going on with us?

I remember recently being on a group call in with a pastor who’s church had held US presidential debates in the past. They had received criticism for this but had felt it was the right thing to do. However they had chose not to hold a debate in the Trump/Biden race. When the pastor was asked why they had chosen not to host it this time he said the most incredible thing…..

“We have chosen not to host anything this time because civility is no longer a part of the civilisation”

I was shocked when he said it but my experience over the past few days hasn’t done anything to disprove his claim. Its not just those last few days either. I was shocked at peoples reaction throughout COVID, I’ve watched online comments on the gun debate, and I’ve also experienced some personal stuff around this too. Oh, and the church is doing it as much as anyone else! All of this has caused me to ask a few questions around this.

Have we always been like this? Or has COVID increased it? Is it just that social media amplifies in a way we never knew about before? Is the amount of people who are reasonable decreasing? Or is it just that they are abandoning social media spaces? Can you be balanced on social media? Can those platforms be used in that way? Or more importantly – How should we respond?

The temptation is to condemn the world to hell and be done with all of it! I’ll just stay on holiday and be a hermit on a hill! I gave this some short consideration…. I could be a hermit! But as a ‘follower’ of Jesus I am not afforded that option.

So what should we do?

Although Jesus didn’t live in a time of social media, He did live in a time where there was intense scrutiny and heated debate surrounding cultural issues. By watching Him we may be able to gain some clues about how we can do better here, both in how we engage, but also how we handle our hearts in the midst of it all. Here a few of my thoughts from looking at Jesus;

• Wisdom of when – from what we read in the gospels Jesus didn’t run a political and cultural commentary on every issue that was going on around them… and there was a lot that was going on. However he wasn’t silent either. He added His thoughts on cultural issues like taxation, divorce, occupation etc. He was more vocal on other cultural/religious issues but these things were not why He had come. He chose His when and what wisely, even though He probably had thoughts and wisdom on a lot more than He ever commented on. I wonder if we could learn from this. When and on what should we comment? Are their times when silence is best? I want to learn the wisdom of when.
• Compassion > Correctness – unfortunately most of our engagement culturally has been to prove how right we are, and in contrast, how wrong the other party is. What if we decided not to deal with it this way? What if we started with compassion? When I see Jesus interacting with people, especially those far away from Him, He always led with compassion. He met them where them where He found them. He didn’t leave them there but He listened and understood. What if we tried to listen and understand first when it comes to online spaces and topics that divide? What it the goal was not to be right but to be loving? I believe that even when we are required to bring a correction, or a different point of view, we can do so respectfully and compassionately.
• Mission critical – the big principle underlining both of the above points was the fact that Jesus understood who He was and why He was doing what He was doing and He kept those things the main thing! He didn’t get sucked into stuff because He hadn’t time. He wasn’t worried about being proved right because that wasn’t why he’d come to earth! Remaining mission critical might sound very military-esque but it really is crucial in helping us understand our engagement around the moments where it feels like the whole world is shouting.

Here are a few extra things I’d throw in….

• Beware of our own emissions – when my friend Steve is training leaders one of things he says is that if we want to see the level of anxiety, animosity, jealously, anger etc. removed from the world then the best thing we can do is to remove the parts that we are responsible for. I reckon the same applies here. Often we are quick to have a go at so-called keyboard warriors online that we forget how much we contribute to the noise. Perhaps we share our opinions too freely without thinking of the impact they might have on another, perhaps our sharing, likes, and reposts are fuelling something we are unaware of. How do we contribute to the lack of civility, whether online or offline? What are the emissions we are giving off?
• Manage social media engagement – I’m not one for boycotting social media because there are some hard things on there. I think as a follower of Jesus disappearing from the space is like when Christian’s built physical strongholds to escape the culture and protect themselves in case they got infected! Just like the physical I don’t think the church should disappear from the online space, but we do have to be aware of the effect it can have. We need to be aware of what we are engaging with, how often we are engaging with it, and the effect that it is having on us. It often feels like something that seeps into me rather than something that slaps me in the face. If we manage that from the start perhaps we can stop it from having negative effects on us and we can think through how we can become someone who spreads light in that world.

Ok, I think that’s enough for now! We have to keep hoping and praying for the world that we live in. God called us to love Him and love others with all we’ve got and we’d do well to get on with that and not get involved in all of the mud slinging that happens around us.

So, is civility dead?

Not yet! But I fear it might be on life support and require some diving healing to bring it back to life. Thankfully we have a God who is great at resurrecting things that seem dead!