Christians in an Age of Outrage: How to Bring Our Best When the World Is at Its Worst
This isn’t the first time Ukraine has been in the news. Ukraine was in the news in 2014 for another reason: anti-government protesters were clashing with police in bloody conflicts in the streets of Kiev. What struck me about the conflict was the role church leaders were playing. Priests were being peacemakers, ministering to wounded people on both sides, both protesters and police, sometimes (as in the image below) literally standing between the warring parties.
I remember thinking at the time how good it would be if the church here in our culture could play the role of peacemakers, standing courageously between warring factions as ministers of grace.
As you know, things haven’t turned out the way I had hoped.
Instead of playing the role of peacemakers (the role that Jesus described as “blessed”), many Christians have waded into the fray slinging mud and hurling insults like everyone else. Not all Christian participation has been toxic but far too many Christians have been caught up in the maelstrom of outrage that has contaminated our national conversation.
Ed Stetzer is Dean of Mission, Ministry and Leadership at Wheaton College. His book Christians in an Age of Outrage: How to Bring Our Best When the World Is at Its Worst aims to do what the title suggests: persuade Christians to step away from the mud-slinging and bring the grace of Jesus to the public discussions of the issues.
Social media, says Stetzer, has become “a cesspool of conspiracy theories, straw-man arguments, and schoolyard bullying. We have reached the point where the comment sections of major newspapers are a greater testament to the depravity of man than all the theology of the Reformers put together.”
Why have so many Christians joined in the fracas? One reason, says Stetzer, is that outrage is the path of least resistance: it is “easier to be angry and pithy than Christlike and on mission.”
Another reason is that we become confused as to our identity and purpose: "When we become primarily identified with any tribe outside the body of Christ, especially when we are identified to the point where others are repelled by us, we’ve traded our Kingdom-based identity for a world-based identity. It’s burning a bridge. It’s building a wall. The most damaging example of Christians at their worst is when someone claims a Kingdom-based identity but pursues some world-based end. Trying to use Christianity to achieve political, economic, or social objectives only increases the outrage directed toward us."
Stetzer devotes the second half of his book to five strategies for winsome and gracious Christian engagement in the social media world:
Cultivating a worldview shaped not by the norms of my echo chamber but by the gospel: If my outlook is shaped by Facebook, Twitter, and Fox News, I can easily become discouraged, short-sighted, cynical. If I want my outlook to be shaped by the gospel, I need to be intentional about what I read, view, and think about. I cannot afford to let the outrage machine of social media make me forgetful of the grand truth that Christ came, died, rose from the grave, and is coming again. Anything that makes that story seem irrelevant is toxic to my spiritual formation as well as my mental health.
Seeing ourselves as Kingdom ambassadors rather than combatants: The New Testament portrays the church as a company of exiles living in a foreign country. Our task is to represent our King with His message of reconciliation. But if we lose that identity and forget that calling, we will think and talk and act just like people who don’t know Jesus or the peace that he came to bring.
Winsome love: Stetzer identifies four traits that must characterize our contribution to the debates. Just imagine what it would be like if this were the tone of the Christian voice in the social media world:
“Empathy: the Polar Opposite of Love is Disgust”
“Humility: Counteracting the Hindrance of Pride with Love”
“Image Bearing: Loving Dignity More than Despising Depravity”
“Sacrifice: The Loving Alternative to Silence”
Online Activity Aligned with Gospel Mission: Online abuse is easy to spot. Obvious examples include “hashtag activism” (confusing online commentary with actually helping) and anonymous trolling (viscous unsigned attacks). What is more difficult is crafting an online presence that bears witness to the gospel:
Remembering that everyone is watching
Seeing people, not avatars
Making grace the default mode
Resisting the urge to fight every battle (After all, you’re not an expert on everything.)
Neighborly Engagement: Here Stetzer gets into very practical ways Christians and churches can engage with their neighbors and community. Actually engaging with real people is, of course, far more difficult than using a mouse and keyboard to broadcast my views and promote my tribe. But we cannot hope to communicate the grace and beauty of the gospel without personally engaging with the people around us: praying for them, serving them, cultivating genuine friendships so that we can create the space and depth that can bear the weight of gospel conversations.
In this book, Stetzer invites us to consider a different kind of social media world, one in which the tone and content of the contributions of Christians is remarkable for its reasonableness and grace. He invites us to do better, to represent our Lord better, to play the role of peacemaker in a troubled world.
Look for this title on our Discipleship Resource Shelf on May 1.
Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Pastor of Discipleship