Social Media and Christians Losing Faith

Last week, a white guy harrassed a black family for parking in a handicap spot at a Florida convenience store.

Per security video footage, the black dad got out of his car, confronted the white guy, pushed him to the ground, then stood at a distance as they exchanged words. According to local “stand your ground laws,” white guy can legally discharge his firearm if threatened, which he did, claiming that the black guy made an agressive move towards him, making the shooting legal.

The video shows a different scenario.

Yesterday, white guy was convicted of murder.

Over a parking space.

2 years ago, you’d be hard pressed to find video footage of someone being shot. Now it’s at our fingertips, and you can bet that there’ll be more. Social media has few rules, and doesn’t seem to care about ruining our innocence.

We’re now exposed to the horrors of this world like no previous generation. Earthquakes, fire, disease, racism, stupidity, war, rumors of war, etc., all in our face.

The world seems like it’s falling apart.

Things are actually no worse than they’ve ever been. Our world will always be a broken, unfair, dangerous place, but the wealthiest parts are insulated from it all. It’s easy for people who live in relative ease, comfort, and safety to believe that the wole planet is a suburban paradise.

It’s not. Never has been.

And while the internet’s happy to show us the occasional good Samaritan, it loves the dark stuff – that’s where the money’s made, and we’re willing customers.

It’s interesting that there’s also what seems to be a mass exodus in the Christian community. Leaders, pastors, influencers, etc., in increasing numbers, are bailing.

Faith no longer makes sense and is, at best, a benign presence, if not a harmful one.

Arguably, it’s hard to be a Christian these days as our culture moves at breakneck speed away from things that our Bible’s seem to value. And if you’ve attended church with any regularity for a number of years, it gets boring.

And the people of our faith don’t seem to be too concerned about stepping into the broken and unfair places of our world. Turns out that the Christian world can be broken and unjust as well.

Social media really loves that one.

But at the top of the list of reasons why people are packing their spiritual baggage is the fact that the world seems to be spinning out of control, and God, and His people, aren’t doing anything about it.

For a Christian, an out of control world is difficult to reconcile with the Bible’s account of a good, loving God who doesn’t stomach evil and, ultimately, wants the world to be a good place.

If God exists, this world wouldn’t be as it is. How can we place faith in a God who allows people to hurt like this, or a church that doesn’t want to do anything abou it?

You won’t find this exodus in non-Western, underdeveloped countries, where everyone knows that the world’s always been a screwed up mess. The majority of these departing folk hail from cultures that pursue, with mercenary abandon, ease, wealth, and safety.

We say, “God shouldn’t let this happen.” They say, “God does whatever He wants.”

I fall more in the “God shouldn’t let this happen” camp. I feel the anger and sense of injustice when horrible things happen, like kids, who’ve already gotten a solid helping of racism, watching their dad get shot at a 7-11. God can do anything He wants, why not step in and stop this?

I also feel the burn that comes with Christians who don’t seem concerned with the myriad social injustices swirling around, also marketed heavily by social media. Wanna make an American Christian angry? Talk about systemic racism, or poverty, or immigration.

The church is just as broken as the world it’s hoping to serve.

So, I understand when people get fed up. Things should be different. There should be far less suffering, especially the horrible kind, and Christians should spend less time pointing fingers and more time helping.

As our phones constantly educate us on how things really are, we become increasingly convinced that none of this religious stuff is working, that it’s all a sham.

I share many of the frustrations that the departed/departing are feeling, especially with regards to racism, justice, and our posture towards the Gay community.

We’re hurting people. Some of those are my friends. I’d prefer that we stop, and I’m compelled to cash in whatever chips I’ve acquired to attempt some level of change.

But I’m not ready to bail yet. Here’s why:

First, I’ve spent years in church. Years. I’ve served in almost every position imaginable, from pastor to janitor, and I’m a different human as a result. Serving these communities – trying my best to learn the ways of Jesus, being encouraged by different leaders to become a better version of myself, etc. – has brought a level of salvation into my personal brokenness like nothing else.

I’ve always known the church to be a busted place. People are hurting, angry, frightened. Add to that a bit of theology and some misread Bible passages and things can get ugly, fast. God’s people have a history of getting things wrong.

But that’s not the only story. Sometimes we get things right. For example, the Christian world spends billions a year advocating for the poor and marginalized of our world.

Billions.

I’m not claiming that the good we do cancels out the bad. Maybe it does, but to me, I’m not ready to evaluate religion’s overall efficacy based on the internet’s moral tally sheet.

The good that religion does never makes the headlines. It’s popular and sexy to only focus on the misguided parts of Christianity. Advocacy for faith is bad news for any media outlet.

As a pastor, I’ve seen people take some pretty courageous steps towards their own healing, or the healing of others. A friend of mine once said, “people don’t change.” Not true. I’ve seen people change too many times.

Second, I have some philosophical problems with the idea that God’s supposed to intervene when things get horrible. Let me explain.

Let’s say that there’s a God – a being who can somehow procure a universe, make it spin, and grow some people on one of its planets. It wouldn’t just be a powerful being, it would have infinitely more knowlege than I do. It’s understanding of truth would be higher than mine.

Then, this God writes a book, explaining how the world works, who He is, who we are, and how we’re supposed to live as a result. Many Christians claim this to be the message of the Bible. Let’s assume for a moment that’s true.

Because of the vast expanse between His ken and ours, there would be multiple places in this book that don’t make sense, or seem stupid. By definition, there would be entire chapters that seem unjust.

That’s the number one reason people reject the scriptures. It’s not the history of canonization, or internal/external evidence for or against, it’s merely the fact that this book doesn’t jive with the way we think things should be.

Maybe the Bible’s complete crap. But if it is the actual words of God, we still wouldn’t agree.

Also, by definition, there would things about the way His world operates that we wouldn’t agree with. Multiple things. When we say, “things shouldn’t be as they are,” we’re saying, “From where I sit, things are wrong.”

I agree that things are horrible. But when we decide that the world shouldn’t be as it is, we’re embracing the idea that we’ve understood everything. From our very limited perspective, with our relatively limited ability to grasp higher truths, we declare how things should be.

That’s like two kids in a sandbox trying to figure out why mom and dad were making weird noises in the bedroom last night. Were they wrestling? Maybe they’re sick?

In our high tech, high discovery, post-industrial-revolution culture, we’ve become too impressed with our ability to understand. Couple that with our knowlege of good and evil getting turned up to level 13, compliments of social media, and things get funky. Fast.

Either way, I can expect that more Western Christians will be leaving my faith. While that threatens me for no good reason (working on that), I don’t think there’s cause for alarm.

This is all a sign that things are changing, though I’m unsure of the direction.

My job is not to judge these folk. It is and will always be to grind whatever grist the mill requires to become more like Jesus – more compassion, mercy, sacrifice, hope, joy – so much so that others are infected with it.

If it’s all a sham, it’s still the best way to live.