Each week there’s a fresh supply of controversies, new attacks launched, characters smeared, positions misrepresented, lies told. It’s exhausting.
I was traveling much of the past week, but a couple of things on Twitter grabbed my attention and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them.
The first, a thread from Beth Moore:
The previous day, Moore had implored Christian leaders to disciple the next generations “on the values of Jesus” rather than on “political or cultural hybrids.” Her generation and the one prior, she wrote, “entangled Christianity so deeply with politics & love of country” so that now many can only see that hybrid as “wholesome & godly & never recognize how far Christian politicking can veer from Christlikeness.” To those experiencing a crisis of faith, Moore assured them it was “the hybrid versions of Christianity that put you there,” not Jesus.
The next day she tweeted a “Part 2,” which she believed to be inspired by the Spirit, declaring that she would “no longer be forced into making statements.” She wasn’t new to this game, she said. It’s been nearly six years now, and she knows how the game works:
“Social media has become one big online table for gamers. The game is called Gotcha. It’s a game where screenshots are saved for opportune times when the cardholder can slap it down on the table & shout, you guessed it, Gotcha! On Twitter, the best Gotcha wins. I’ve found that those who [demand] statements are never satisfied by them. Those who demand apologies or explanations rarely accept them. They bully. They use you for hits and draw attention to themselves. They need you to stick with the narrative they’ve created for you. Social media also has no tolerance for anyone but extremists. Like many others who get questioned constantly, I’m a person of deep conviction AND deep compassion in a world where compassion is seen as compromise and proof that the conviction was fraudulent.”
Moore added that she would play no further role in “affirming in any way what I believe is a sick, very dysfunctional and destructive marriage between conservative evangelicalism and political party. It has done us tremendous harm & undermined our witness.” She then reasserted her role as Bible teacher, not political pundit. And she sought to claim space between the culture wars positions:
“The fact is, I care immensely for the unborn AND for the born. I care immensely for the abused, the unsafe, mistreated & misunderstood. I care immensely for the oppressed and hurting. I care about the poor. The rich. I care about sound doctrine and I care about loving people adn being kind to people who don’t share my beliefs or interpretations. I care most of all that people see Jesus for who he is. Jesus of the Scriptures. Jesus of the Gospels.”
Moore’s words hit home with me.
In person, it’s my habit to answer every question thrown my way as honestly and openly as possible, whether that’s on a stage or in a classroom. I believe that honesty and transparency are critical to our collective pursuit of truth and also important for personal accountability. If my ideas are not sound, I’d like to know that. I’m accustomed to putting my ideas out there not primarily to convince people I’m right, but to share my thinking on any given topic, at that moment, to invite conversation and sometimes critique. In the classroom, when I share my personal views on a subject, I don’t do so in order to compel students to reach the same conclusion I do. If I do share my personal views on any issue, it’s usually only at students’ request, and when I do so, it’s in a way that invites them to be critical of my own teaching on the subject. I describe how I came to hold that view, discuss my own uncertainties, and I’m also open about what troubles me about holding any particular view.
Social media, as Moore has observed, doesn’t play by these rules. Those of us who allow for complexity, who are sometimes troubled as much by our own positions as we are by those of others, who don’t pick sides and give our uncritical and undying loyalty to one team over another have come to expect frequent attacks, ridicule, and derision.
As Moore suggests, though, refusing to play this game isn’t chiefly about protecting one’s feelings. And it isn’t even about not wanting to feed the beast. For Moore, and also for me, what it comes down to is about refusing to sacrifice one’s primary work in order to scurry around fending off latest round of attacks.
Time is precious and distractions abound. Moore is a Bible teacher. I’m a historian. Even as my gut instinct leads me to prioritize transparency and honesty, I’m acutely aware that the most valuable contribution I can make involves bringing my research and expertise to bear on a subject, not airing my personal views on the topic of the hour. This goes against the grain of our influencer culture, and also the posture that many (though hardly all) pastors, seminary profs, and church leaders seem to have embraced. Some days I have the time and inkling to play the game in the hope that by doing so I might be able to disrupt the game, even if only for a moment. Some days I just don’t have the time to put up with the nonsense.
I think Moore is right to draw the line she does. She’d also be right if she wanted to stay in the fray. She attests that she is guided by the Spirit, and I can say amen to that.
Before we think more about individual responses to this situation, however, I think it’s good to reflect briefly on who is making the rules of the game. This is where a tweet from Adam Greenway, president of Southwestern Seminary, caught my eye.
Greenway quotes a passage from James Draper in his book The Church Christ Approves, published in 1974: “Fundamentalism is more dangerous than Liberalism because everything is done in the name of the Lord. In the name of the Lord, the Fundamentalist condemns all who disagree with him….He uses the Bible as a club with which to beat people over the head, rather than as a means of personal strength and a revealer of God. To the Fundamentalist, the test of fellowship is correct doctrine. If you do not agree with his doctrinal position, he writes you off and will not have fellowship with you. There is no room in his world for those who have a different persuasion. He feels threatened by diverse convictions and writes them off as sinister and heretical. As long as you support his position, he is with you. Cross him, and he has no use whatsoever for you….The Fundamentalist tactic is simple: hatred, bitterness, and condemnation of all whom they despise….In the name of the Lord they will launch vehement attacks on individuals and churches. In the name of the Lord they attempt to assassinate the character of those whom they oppose. They direct their attack most often on other Christian leaders with whom they find disagreement.”
That last line: “They direct their attack most often on other Christian leaders with whom they find disagreement.” This has certainly been my experience the past couple of years.
While readily conceding that vitriol, intolerance, and lack of nuance doesn’t always come from the Right, among American Christians, the tactics Greenway describes have long been a hallmark of the fundamentalist faction. That faction has exerted pressures on the evangelical mainstream for more than half a century, but I think it’s accurate to say that this pattern has escalated over past five years.
It is worth noting, however, that none of this just happens. If we look beneath the surface, we can see organized efforts to assert this pressure. We saw that in stark terms with the conservative takeover of the SBC in the 1970s and 1980s, and we continue to see ways in which a small faction siezes control of institutions, redefines boundaries, and uses coercive power to enforce those rigid boundaries in ways that further consolidate their power.
Investigative journalist Katherine Stewart’s book The Power Worshippers illuminates some of the behind-the-scenes scaffolding propping up the Religious Right. (See also her recent New York Times op-ed.) Anna Caudill, too, shared a thread this week illuminating the networks that make sense of why a Daily Wire writer would go to such lengths to attempt to undermine an SBC abuse survivor’s account, despite ample evidence corroborating the survivor’s story.
Too often, social media dustups are seen as squabbles or pettiness or as an inevitable result of the medium itself. There is undoubtedly truth in this, but we would do well to look beneath the surface to inquire who is stirring up these controversies, and to what ends. In whose interest is it to stifle careful conversations that give space for good faith disagreements without preemptively condemning opponents to hell?
And what are the consequences, for individuals, organizations, for the church, and for the nation, when the many thoughtful, respectful, informed voices are excluded from our public discourse?
Yet when we think of agency, I don’t think we should think only of the puppet masters, the behind-the-scenes manipulators whose power depends on stirring up divisiveness and rancor. We also need to think of those who have allowed them to get away with it. And this is nearly all of us.
For far too long, far too many people have stayed quiet in the face of unfairness or injustice. Pastors studiously avoided controversial topics lest they alienate members of their churches—people they loved, nurtured, and people who pay their salaries. Pastors then affirmed one another, over and over again, that this was the most prudent course of action, the most pastoral, until at some point they realized that they had squandored any opportunity they might have had to redirect individuals, or entire congregations, or even an entire movement.
Friends decided it was better to allow uncharitable or even dangerous ideas to go unchalleged in their social circles because voicing objections creates awkwardness. Leaders of Christian organizations decided it was best to stay quite on a whole range of topics lest they alienate current or potential donors. Christian college administrators sought to quash discussion of controversial topics lest they lose prospective students or donor dollars. College professors often complied.
On an individual basis, many of these decisions may well have been good ones. I have no doubt some were. Who needs more rancor in their lives? A paycheck is a good thing. Collectively, however, we have reached a dangerous place, one where the majority—those who hold more nuanced positions, who hold these positions with compassion and humility—are increasingly the silent majority. Their silence is policed. Those who transgress these rules quickly become object lessons for others: step out of line and you will be punished. Ruthlessly.
So where does this leave us?
I’m confident that Moore will continue to be a beacon in evangelical spaces whether she plays the game or not. But I do think it is incumbent upon the rest of us—those who are on social media and those who are not—to think carefully about our own role in bringing us to this place. Our own silences, our too easy affirmations that staying quiet is the wisest course of action, our reluctance to defend those taking fire, our willingness to overlook the cruelty because the perpetrator happens to be on “our side.”
Fundamentally, what is needed now is an honest self-assessment, a rethinking of how we draw lines, how we choose sides, where we place our loyalty, and what kind of price we’re willing to pay to walk things back and create spaces where democracy has a chance, and where true Christianity can flourish—a Christianity that relies on grace and truth rather than on coercive power to make its witness known.
To Play the Game, or Not to Play the Game
The consistent quality of your substack content is remarkable. You're really hitting on all cylinders. As a small (college) group leader trying not to say too much - or not enough - I've found these all so very helpful. Not enough people with a platform wade out in the deep and speak honestly. Glad you're doing it.
I was early on Twitter. When I passed my 14th twitter anniversary in May I decided it was time to delete my account. The prospect that Elon Musk would purchase twitter and turn it into 4Chan also weighed into that decision. As I hovered over the 'delete' button I hesitated. I thought about this for a bit and decided that that hesitation was due to the addictive nature of twitter and that made it seem all the more urgent to get off of it. I finally gathered up my resolve and pressed the button (took about a week to get there). It takes a while to detox from twitter - I'm still in that process about 2 months later, but already I feel so much more peaceful. I can say it has definitely been beneficial to my mental health.
I came to realize that social media is a rage machine. The algorithms try to maximize engagement and it seems that maximizing rage is good for maximizing engagement. They're playing on basic human psychology. The early years of twitter weren't like that, but in recent years they figured out how to get us more riled up and it worked all too well. I came to the conclusion that the only way to win was not to play the game.
“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.” WOPR from War Games