Hi Jared,
As you will recall, when you asked me two months ago to endorse your book, I declined to read it because of what I’d seen of your online behavior toward fellow Christians.
Your recent speculations about me and my supposed loneliness on the basis of a clip from a talk I gave 9 years ago are another example of the kind of thing I was concerned about.
/2
I hadn’t planned to make any response, but repeated talk about my being “obviously lonely” and longing for marriage are not only untrue, but reflect poorly on Immanuel Nashville, the most relationally healthy church I’ve been in.
/3
The truth is, by God’s kind grace, I’ve never been less lonely in my life.
/4
If you wish to disagree with me on points of theology, you are of course welcome to do so—though it’s unclear to me why you would have asked me to endorse your book if you thought so little of my theological understanding as you seem to.
/5
But for both our sakes, please don’t use misrepresentations of my life to promote your book. It doesn’t advance the cause of the gospel, which I know is the primary concern we both share.
/end
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Four scriptures that have been shaping my attitude to social media:
1. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. –– James 3:5-6
We need to be cautious. Our tongues (& therefore thumbs) can do a world of damage.
2. Go on up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good news;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good news;
lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Behold your God!” –– Isaiah 40:9
We need to be focussed.
Is it apparent from our posts/comments, for example, that God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love? Or are we asking people to behold our opinions, rightness, big dealness?
Maybe God is giving us exactly what we’ve been wanting. We’ve prioritised individualism over community, the material over the relational, the virtual over the physical. And now we have it. More than we can likely manage.
We’ve also been chanting the virtue of self-expression. So let’s be honest: several days into lockdown, is self-expression still the highest good? Do the people we live with long that we’d express ourselves *more*?
And forced to spend so much time with our actual self — are we so confident of it’s essential goodness? Are we just stoked to have so much in distracted time with it? Or might we be finding ourselves wearying?
Maybe “you do you” isn’t the answer we thought it was.