The wrath of the Twitterverse

A couple of weeks ago I preached on the passage in John's gospel where Jesus tells the disciples that if the world hates them they are to keep in mind that it hated him first. Over the last couple of days I have discovered that there is nowhere in the democratic world where that hatred is more vociferously expressed than on Twitter

As I was scrolling through my Twitter feed I spotted what I thought was a relatively innocuous tweet from a Christian organisation commenting on the need for the gospel to be more fully understood in public life. I had no doubt that atheist tweeters would argue against this view point but when I looked at their responses I was shocked by what I read.

The anger expressed at this single tweet was first of all disproportionate, then downright abusive. Given that you've got 140 characters to play with in a tweet it seems to me to be wasteful using at least a third of them to rant at your opponent in terms that, if used on the street, might see you fall foul of public order legislation. Obviously I won't repeat the language used here other than to say that I have now discovered at least two combinations of the f-word with other words of which I was previously unaware. The Christian tweeter in question was also accused of being both a liar and a sociopath.
You may be reading this and wondering at my naïveté and maybe I am naive but I can't see how the atheist cause is advanced by the kind of abusive ranting I came across this week. You may be saying 'That's what you get for going on Twitter. You need to come out from among them and be separate.' But I disagree. I think we need to be aware of just how base and vicious the antipathy towards Christianity is out there. Even if these people courageously hide behind assumed names (which most of them do) what they are saying is clearly deeply felt if not strongly argued.

So what should Christians do? As in all other areas of life the wisdom of the Scripture needs to be applied to the twitterverse and every other social media arena. Words from 1 Peter 2 spring to mind;  'Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they may accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.'

There are times when the kinds of lies and abuse with which we have to put up will tempt us to lash out in similar terms or use language that is less than loving or employ denigrating sarcasm. We need to resist such temptation and resolve firmly and clearly to share the gospel both in what we say and in how we say it.

Jesus himself told us to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. Let's be wise and not naive about the evils of social media but let's resolve to be innocent in the way we use it to glorify God and share the good news at every opportunity.

Jesus also told us not to cast our pearls before swine. Let's be wise enough about a social media thread not to get sucked into an online argument that only wastes time that could be more fruitfully spent glorifying God in some other aspect of our lives.

Social media has revolutionised our lives. It has exposed us to some of the realities of the world which we had previously been able to ignore and hope they wouldn't affect us. This is the world into which Jesus sends us. We are to be in this world but not of this world. If it hates him it will hate us. But take heart. He has overcome the world.