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Timothy Keller

@timkellernyc

19 May

Thread: Considering reading Chris Bail's, Breaking the Social Media Prism, (Princeton, 2021). He starts with the problem of social and political polarization and asks how social media contributes to it. amzn.to/2SaJX77 1/7

The common thesis is that algorithms keep us in ‘echo chambers’ where we hear only our own side. Research shows that-on the contrary, daily exposure to the other political/cultural side (and not just to the nasty caustic versions of it) only made people stronger in their view 2/7

...or even more extreme. Why? Further research revealed that for a significant number-especially for those who do the most posting (rather than just reading) social media has become a place where people increasingly disembedded from face to face community curate an identity. 3/7

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Timothy Keller

@timkellernyc

16 May

Some critique my account of Christian forgiveness saying that, based on my race, I shouldn’t speak to what other races should do. Here's the same view of forgiveness—from Miroslav Volf, a Croatian, against the background of the ‘ethnic cleansings’—the violence and genocide...1/6

...in the Balkans in the early 90s. Many say forgiving exploiters is unjust—but Volf says without forgiveness “both victim and perpetrator are imprisoned in the automatism of mutual exclusion” and 2/6 amazon.com/gp/product/B07…

"only those who forgive and who are willing to forgive will be capable of relentlessly pursuing justice without falling into the temptation to pervert it into injustice.” Some say you must not forgive until the exploiter repents, but Bible says otherwise (Mark 11:25) and 3/6

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Timothy Keller

@timkellernyc

13 May

Thread: Forgiveness does not preclude justice. On the contrary, without forgiveness, you may pursue something less like justice for all and more like revenge for you- two eyes for an eye and two teeth for a tooth. Forgiveness and justice go together--our culture separates them. 1

If God wanted to forgive us without doing justice there would have been no need for the Cross. If God wanted to pursue justice without forgiving us there also would have been no need for the Cross. The Cross testifies that, with God, these two only exist together. 2/6

True forgiveness and justice exist together because (see Augustine) both are forms of love. A failure to do justice fails to love the human community and God. A failure to forgive fails to love your enemy and God. So forgiveness and justice can and must proceed together. 3/6

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Timothy Keller

@timkellernyc

24 Apr

Thread: The early church was marked by a deep concern for the poor and for racial equality (Gal 2:10; 3:28). At the very same time, it taught that sex was only for within a mutually self-giving life-long covenant of marriage (1 Thess 4:3-8; 1 Cor 6:12-20). 1/7

To our modern ears, this sounds like a contradictory mishmash of liberalism and conservatism. And today the church is being fragmented by progressives and conservatives who want it to only serve one of these commitments and discard the other. 2/7

But to the church, the sex ethic & the justice ethic are a whole cloth. Sexual immorality and injustice go hand in hand because there is a unifying principle that unites them. In Jesus, we see one who had ultimate power and privilege sacrificing it in order to love and save us. 3

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Timothy Keller

@timkellernyc

21 Apr

Thread: One common complaint made about Christians is that they believe in eternal consequences to our actions. Christians believe souls live on, therefore, they believe that moral errors affect us eternally. Secular persons also believe that there are terrible moral errors 1/4

...like exploitation and oppression. But since they don’t believe in an afterlife--they don’t think the consequences of wrongdoing go on into eternity. Does that mean secular people are more open-minded and Christians more narrow and coercive? I don’t think so. 2/4

Imagine arguing over a cookie. Jack thinks the cookie is poison, and Jill thinks it's not. Jack thinks Jill’s mistaken view of the cookie will send her to the hospital or worse. Jill thinks Jack’s mistaken view will merely keep him from having a fine dessert. 3/4

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Timothy Keller

@timkellernyc

17 Apr

New thread: On Morality, Design, and Humanization.
A summary of Alasdair MacIntyre’s “master argument” in After Virtue:

Imagine trying to hammer a nail with a wristwatch and finding that the watch just breaks apart. Should you call it a ‘bad’ watch? 1/8

No-because its purpose is not to hammer nails but to tell time. Unless we know the “telos” or purpose of something, we have no way of evaluating it as good or bad. So how will we know if a human is bad or good? Such terms are meaningless unless we know what human life is for. 2/8

Why were we made? Why are we here? The Enlightenment Project was to “bracket God out" and seek a morality without reference to a telos for which humans were created. This project has failed—thus the fragmenting of western society over what is a good human life. 3/8

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Timothy Keller

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