An Infernal Memo
I am dismayed at the folly of believers airing their grievances (petty or otherwise) to the media, the world, about God’s church. What are we thinking? More to the point, we aren’t thinking!
If it is not formal media, then it is social media being co-opted to publicize the shortcomings of God’s church – heaven knows and hell trumpets there are a few - always will be. We Tweet, we Facebook, we Instagram our lack of forbearance, our inability to forgive, and maintain the unity and integrity of God’s church. The unity of God’s people is one of Paul’s prime goals. Some have made it of least important.
Paul is at great pains, and endured great pains, to ensure we aren’t riven by sectarianism, bitterness, un-holiness, unforgiveness, and hatred – so often justified. He concludes it is already a defeat if we can’t deal internally with matters of potential pain and divisiveness as God’s people, a people who will one day judge the world and angels. What hope do angels have when we run to the instruments of the world, social and legal, instead of wisely and properly judging a matter ourselves, allowing others to make a determination, or saying nothing publicly – a restraint long jettisoned. There is nothing clever, wise, or godly about using social media platforms to call the church to account, nor its servants, with vitriolic complaint and thinly veiled bitterness.
When we go to the world, instead of going into the world, we are bypassing and invalidating the mandate of the church. It is validated as – ‘only wanting the truth to come out’ - instead of what it most often is: revenge for being slighted, or not recognized, or in extreme cases abused. (I use abuse with care as we have allowed anything that offends us to be conveniently termed spiritual or emotional abuse. In so doing we minimize real abuse and mock real pain and grief with trite slights.)
Going to the media about the church is like perpetuating a Civil War. Have we ever seen a nation benefit from civil war? In the short term it hardly ever does, let alone long term. It is the seedbed of years of bitterness, exclusion, and hatred.
Christians threaten to go to the world - that bastion of truth, justice, and reconciliation - and so believe that they will create a more just and fairer church. This is seldom, if ever, true, as they have no enduring love for the church to begin with, just a fascination with their own causes.
Whilst they maintain their rage or disappointment the view of the church is further degraded, already bad enough in some quarters.
Social media and blogging are the new revolutions’ guillotine. This hasn’t been lost on some who spend inordinate amounts of their sad little lives finding fault and bringing down their judicial blade, posting for all to see. Lives, churches, and families have been greatly harmed by their cloaked spite. What is amazing is that the impunity social media affords them is never the right of journalists, who, we’d hope, at least research before publication, and having done so are always open to liability. Not so the social media warriors.
Throwing mud at a bride isn’t a good career move.