My Truth... and Social Media!
Navigating social media these days can be toxic for anyone, but all the more for Christians. It's easy to see a post, become emotionally sucked in by it, and promote its cause for the good of all the people! Recently, I've watched this happen with several different events that have taken place in our world. I've seen faithful and godly brothers and sisters promote things that they did not know for sure to be true, and could not possibly defend, but yet, they posted it because for one reason or another, they were taken in by it. To be clear, I believe that I myself have been guilty about this, and it was only in reflecting on my own social media presence that I decided to write this. Before I explain why I believe this to be a problem, let me start by reminding us of the world we live in.
Our world and culture abandoned and denied any notion of absolute truth a long time ago. Today the world has even attempted to redefine truth in a way that truly destroys the meaning of it all together. Truth today has largely become subjective. What I mean by that is that it's now rooted in the subject, in the one who is doing the perceiving. So, we have celebrities saying things like, "speak your truth" or "live your truth," as if these statements have any real meaning. This understanding of truth has translated into people posting things on social media that are true for them, but, well maybe not necessarily true for you. It means they don't really need to support what they post, because after all, it's only their truth and who are you to question it?
One of the most recent examples of this was with the tragic death of Ahmaud Arbery. There is no question that the circumstances surrounding this young man's death raised many questions. The most glaring question was, why weren't the two men charged or at least arrested immediately? Once the video hit social media, all sorts of posts went up claiming to know exactly what happened. Many attributed the shooting to racism; claiming the death was clearly another example of white on black violence, and the only crime this man was guilty of was being black! Others just knew the shooting was completely justified, and there was no video that would convince them otherwise. Who needs a video when we have such a solid justice system?
Now, I'm not saying that some of these opinions may not turn out to be true. But what I am saying is when the information began to come out and this began to spread across social media, the majority of Americans had no clue what the circumstances were. We had no clue what the motivations were or the facts surrounding the shooting. Yet, it didn't stop us from spreading "our truth." We all somehow made up our minds about motive, guilt, and/or innocence regarding all parties involved. This happened on both sides, everyone shouting for justice, only they wanted to be the judge. There is a reason why Lady Justice is portrayed blind, because unfortunately, our eyes often have filters that make us see what we want to see, rather than what is really there and only what is there.
Along comes the Christian, who believes in absolute truth, justice, love, mercy, and all these qualities that are biblical and good. We see a post on what truly is a tragic situation and it is grabs our attention, and truly pulls at our heart. Before we know it, we are sharing it on our own social media pages and going along with a proposed narrative. Again, it doesn't matter which narrative you adopted; the point is that a judgment was made in order to adopt one. A judgement based in something other than truth, and mostly out of emotion.
So, how do we then navigate this mess today? Well, first start by recognizing the world and culture we live in, where the majority of people (especially those in scholarly circles and those involved in secular media) have accepted this new worldly definition of truth. Because of this, every single article and every single video must be read and viewed with an extremely critical lens. Our search is not for "our truth" it is for The Truth. We want to know whether or not what we are reading or watching comports with reality. The difficulty here is that most times, you won't know or be able to tell. The difficulty is that because we live in a day where news moves faster than reality, as Christians we may be late on speaking out on matters of cultural significance. But, it's not a race! We can't impact a culture by conforming to it. Our voices must be one that reflects the God we serve, which then means, we should not spread or pass on what we cannot verify. For most of us (me included) that means, that there will be a whole lot less sharing on social media!
As Christians we have standards that are different than the rest of the worlds. We believe in absolute truth, and worship the God who loves truth, who is Truth. However, the fact that we live in a culture that does not believe in absolute truth, does not give us a pass on seeking it. Instead it means that we have to do that much more work to ensure we are continually seeking truth. We do the work because we love the one who is Truth; we do the work because we belong to Him. Truth glorifies Him, and anything that isn't true, will lead others away from Him. If you love Jesus, then you love Truth, and your desire should be for others to love truth as well. So, please brothers and sisters, let's watch what we post on social media. Post according to God’s standards, and not the worlds. If you can't prove it, don't say it! Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully, are His delight. Proverbs 12:22