SOCIAL MEDIA IS ABSOLUTELY ROGUE
It’s morphed into a realm of mass confusion and terror. A mob mentality consumes feeds.
Proceed at your own risk.
Almost overnight, social media feeds turned into places of contempt; places that are prone to rash judgement: a faux community where everyone is equipped with his own personal soapbox, to shout and educate his peers.
If you are not commandeering your social media, you are part of the problem. How will your neighbor ever know if you are actually a good person? It’s paramount you post and preserve a pristine reputation.
YET, WHERE WERE YOU MONTHS AGO BEFORE OUR WORLD SLIPPED THROUGH THE CRACKS OF UNABASHED PANDEMONIUM?
How many Starbucks drinks did you leisurely consume, happily ignoring the fact that they, like so many institutions, abhor the family and staunchly deny the dignity and value of human life?
Yet now, if an organization doesn’t share a black square, or write a dissertation proclaiming their virtue, it is not worthy of support.
Whatever one posts or doesn’t post is sized up and evaluated, not in terms of entertaining an idea expressed freely by one’s neighbor, but as a way to determine a person’s virtue. Is this individual a true Christian?
Forgive me, for what I’ve posted and failed to post.
Many shops and other organizations articulate compelling words on the beauty of human person and the ugliness of discrimination.
“You haven’t done enough!”
“Sheesh, c’mon! Do better than this!”
“What do you even know about this?!”
Comments of this sort fire back caked in vitriol.
You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. So, tread carefully, the ground on which you walk is delicate.
Why? Because in the world of social media, you are not seen as answering to God, but rather the mob.
If you do not coincide with popular opinion, if you believe that maybe, just maybe, the world is not as transparent as we hoped, and certain matters are complex and serious and — Oh good Lord! off with your head! Clearly, you are spiritually blind and poor Christian!
STOP.
Please, stop.
Stop turning social media into a territory of spying on your neighbor, verbal bullying, and virtue signaling.
Failure to post on Facebook or mimic the words of others is not a testimony to one’s spiritual blindness. And to assume that is the case, is a gross mistake.
WHAT PREVENTS SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS?
First, it is not proclaiming our own virtue that safeguards us from being spiritually blind, but rather a sense of reverence. Reverence, which stems from Christ our King, opens wide the doors of humility and allows us to always see, discern, and forgive.
Conversely, a lack of reverence taints every facet of our lives, corrodes our ability to see, to love, and to reason, for “reverence is the attitude that can be designated as the mother of all moral life, for in it man first takes a position toward the world that opens his spiritual eyes and enables him to grasp values.” Reverence calls to mind the beauty, wonder, and joy of being.
Midst the profane and irreverent, we find that human begins are reduced to objects of use. Denying man his dignity, his personhood, is evil.
Yet, what can we expect from an anti-culture that is incapable of respecting the act that creates life, and moreover, cannot recognize the value of life at its most vulnerable?
If we hold that life is disposable, if we can’t agree that all life is sacred, we will forever be lost in the arid wasteland of contempt, virtue signaling, and suspicion of our brothers and sisters.
When we elevate particular individuals over others, we divide. The end.
This mentality causes us to lose the appropriate response that man should have towards all of God’s creation. Yes, when we elevate, we divide, and in turn, we lose the joy of being.
Why? Because all life is sacred, from the moment of conception until death. Until we understand this, we will never heal.
Secondly, It is never offensive to remind one that:
All people are created in God’s image and likeness.
All have value, dignity, and are loved by God.
All are called to salvation.
All lives matter.
If you look down upon ANY individual based on skin color; if you deem ANY life disposable; you committed a sin of blasphemy; it is an offense against God. You are denying the goodness in which God has created them.
“So God created man in His own image…”
Life is sacred. No exceptions.
THIS ALSO MEANS…
The homeless man on the side of the road, who smells and is covered in ungodly muck, possesses equal dignity and value as you and as a favorite celebrity. Yet, how many of us have awkwardly skirted past, pretending we do not see his pain?
How many times have we been made immobile to the call of helping someone, or purposely ignored an opportunity to show love simply because we were uncomfortable or found the situation inconvenient or even repugnant?
Months ago, before all this painful ruckus ensued, our world was still suffering, broken, and deeply hurt; for many people, life is considered disposable. Yet, were we monopolizing our social media platforms crying out for justice, crying out for love? Or were we mindlessly sipping our Starbucks Frapps, complaining about inconveniences, irritable people, and wondering how to up our Insta likes?
Before we dive into rash critiques of our brothers and sisters in Christ, claiming that love is lacking in their hearts; that they are too cowardly: please, STOP.
OUR WORLD IS SUFFERING. OUR WORLD HAS BEEN SUFFERING. OUR WORLD CONTINUES TO SUFFER.
This will never change, unless we, in all that we do, remember that Christ is our King. Christ is essential.
Only through Him, can we lead with love and show that to all men. This should be our goal: making Christ the King of our hearts. Not virtue signaling from our social media accounts.
We must foster a love founded in Truth: founded in Christ. We must turn our hearts to Christ, and allow Him to perfect our love. Only in falling more in love with Christ, can we love others correctly.
If we fail to do this, we will only continue to divide.
All lives matter.
Life is sacred.
If we CANNOT accept this basic principle, if we find it offensive or distasteful, nothing else will ever be fixed.
CONCLUSION
Before you blast out words and articles midst the muggy lagoon of social media, what are your values as someone striving for salvation?
What do you stand for? Who or what is the King of your heart?
We do not need to share these values on our social media pages so people know we have values, but rather, we must deliberately live it out in our day to day lives. We must strive, as Mother Teresa said, to do something beautiful for God. Only this mentality will transform our world.
Stand true and hold fast; you will be tested if you live for love — a real love: a Christ-centered love.
God alone renews and heals.
And God values every life. No exception. Whether it be the sufferer or the bully or the vulnerable.
He knew you before you were born and He calls you home.
