Recently, I was criticized for following people on Twitter that are unbelievers. I admit that some of the language they use is awful! One example of a tweet that showed up was, "She's dying, the buff chick is gonna die. Damn the writers of this stupid program!!!." Quite frankly I am flattered that I would receive criticism for another person’s behavior. I am reminded of those criticizing Jesus for associating with prostitutes and tax collectors. I can't say that I think this language is appropriate for a bunch of Christians but it is appropriate for the author. It is something they learned and could even be cultural. I would also think that if we are to be like Jesus and associate with unbelievers we should expect this kind of behavior. Jesus died for them too. After all, why would someone who is not a Christ follower ever be expected to act like one? We should love them. We should not look down on them or even expect our attempts to address their behavior to be successful. Until they are transformed in their thinking we should not expect change. Regarding Twitter, Christ followers should post things that our followers might see and therefore be drawn to Christ. Sorry for the rant. By the way, the author of this tweet was commenting on a scene from an episode of “House” where someone was inserting a needle into a woman’s eye.
Creed Branson, Executive Guy
1 comments:
On twitter, I tend to follow anyone that looks like they would be interesting to communicate with. That's pretty much my only qualification. I don't care if they're Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist (passive or evangelical), Bhuddist, or whatever. I'm pretty sure I have a few of each in my twitter stream and I like it that way. The stuff I post to Twitter might not exactly be the shining Christian example that I'd like it to be, but it's an accurate representation of where I am at that moment. In that realness, I hope that as I grow closer to God, it'll show and it'll be perceived as more authentic than it would be if I only twittered scripture at people.
I've always chafed a bit (before and after I became Christian) at this idea of wanting and having to make Christian versions of various things that are out there in popular culture. You know what I mean...GodTube, Faithout, Godwitter are recent examples but it's been going on as long as I can remember (Stryper, anyone?). I'm sure they're a blessing to someone, but they can become a walled garden where Christians only interact with other Christians and don't get to see the ugliness of the internet. They also don't get to see the great things that come up out of that ugliness which is more beautiful.
Social networking (to use a modern name for various communication technologies that have been around for years) makes it really easy to create superficial relationships, but sometimes those relationships get deeper and more real and that's where real change can happen.
Not that I'm any good at the relationship part but I'm working on it. :)
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