Why do you engage in political social media posts? Why do you and I share, like, comment on, or retweet political posts? Or more broadly, why do we scroll our favorite news sites every day (or multiple times a day)?
Take a second to truly consider the questions. As Christians who want to glorify God and honor his name in every sphere of life, including the cultural sphere, we might have a knee-jerk answer that we engage in political posts because we want to promote what is right and ultimately glorify God. Moreover, we might say we scroll the news because we want to know what’s going on in God’s world so that we can properly respond, do what’s right, and engage the lost.
And such an answers would be admirable and correct. But let’s each analyze ourselves: Is this actually the reason we usually engage in politics online?
A recent tweet made me start to reconsider what might be behind much of our internet political engagement. It was convicting—convicting for me personally as I often catch myself scrolling Facebook, Twitter, or news sites; and convicting for our current Bible-believing church as a whole. Here’s what Ligon Duncan, a former pastor and current president of a seminary, recently tweeted:
One of the strange features of the internet and social media is the phenomenon of polemics as entertainment.
People who are attracted to this kind of thing can pretend that their great concern is for God, the truth & the church, when in fact they are simply indulging the flesh.
— Ligon Duncan (@LigonDuncan) October 19, 2019
“One of the strange features of the internet and social media is the phenomenon of polemics as entertainment. People who are attracted to this kind of thing can pretend that their great concern is for God, the truth & the church, when in fact they are simply indulging the flesh.”
His point is that the 24/7 internet and social media have made polemics (this constant responding to and attacking others for different stances on issues) not only much more common but particularly accessible and entertaining. It has always felt good and been entertaining to be reinforced in something you believe, or to see someone you disagree with beaten in an argument—such is human nature (and in many ways, sinful human nature). But the internet has exacerbated this phenomenon. Now we can open an app or click a bookmark and feel that thrill of debate and “righteous” reinforcement about what we believe and do (and what they don’t believe or do). Even more so, because of social media, we now can engage in the debates ourselves, feeling like we’re contributing to the conversations and the good of the culture.
And before we say that’s not us, let’s realize the biggest issue in trying to determine the true motives in our hearts is that we can always find a way to justify engaging a post, even if we’re being nasty and blunt and honestly very unlike Christ. Our hearts are twisted, similar to the lawyer in conversation with Jesus, which led to the Good Samaritan story; we’re frequently “desiring to justify” our actions (Luke 10:29). And in political engagement, we often can justify our likes, reposts, and scrolling because we very well may be on the righteous, more biblical and godly side of the issue. But being able to justify it still doesn’t answer the ultimate why we’re doing what we’re doing.
It seems that Duncan in his tweet above may be correct in diagnosing what’s often the stimulus. For me and many of my brothers and sisters in Christ, I believe that if we truly analyzed our motives, we may find we’re engaging frequently in political issues (issues that, besides our voting every couple years, we have little influence in) because it’s entertaining. Yes, entertaining—as base and simple as that sounds. (Along with entertaining, we might add how it feels good to be right and how it fuels our pride, but these are just part of the reason for why it’s so entertaining).
Now, of course this is not always the case. It is helpful to know what’s going on in our world (to a degree), and it can be right and godly to point out injustice, even on social media. But might we be deceiving ourselves often as to why we’re actually reposting or scrolling? We can say we’re mainly caring about truth and injustice, but let’s be honest, you and I recurently engage and scroll and post because it’s simply another avenue of intrigue and entertainment.
Let us, therefore, be intentional to notice what’s behind our political scrolling and postings. The world is looking on. They’re watching us as Christians. Let’s engage when it’s truly loving and helpful to do so, but let’s also frequently curb our appetite for entertainment in this area. Why? Ultimately for the supremacy of the glory of Christ’s gospel of grace—so that, by our posts and engagements, we may show what is most supreme in our lives and in the world is not political change (even good political change), but Christ and his marvelous and eternally satisfying gospel of grace.
