Why I Reject the Court of Social Media
I am on social media in moderation. I have a Facebook account and an X account. I hope to switch those to “business” or “professional” as soon as the following justifies it. That is because my ministry called The Reformed Classicalist is the embodiment of convictions that I think should be spread. And so to speak of a rejection of a “court” of social media is simply to reject the notion of social media as a fitting replacement for either ecclesiastical or civil courts. I am not a fan of violent mobs or needy hall monitors. It is in this spirit that I offer the following words of disclaimer to any who should require them.
“But,” someone will say, “so and so really does need to be dealt with.” Perhaps they do, but Jesus gave us a remedy for that in Matthew 18. Have you spoken to their pastor? I am not their pastor.
“Yes,” they may reply, “but such a such is of x level or extent of concern that it simply must be denounced.” Does it? Then make your case. You can be sure that I will make mine. If we are talking about true and false ideas, good and evil actions or attitudes, well, I have two decades and counting of articles and teachings making my view clear. And my relevant views have not changed.
If I am not moving fast enough for your tribunal, I would respectfully counsel you to move on to someone moving more at your speed.
If one should reply, “I don’t buy that. I think you are holding to this view or harboring that person,” or something of the sort, then the speed and anxiousness with which you have escalated your suspicions of me tells me everything I need to know. You cannot be trusted with my words and meaning, and you are showing yourself to be a Ninth Commandment-smashing wrecking ball in full swing. It appears that you only mean to use my name and status (I don’t have much—relax) to settle scores with someone else, or even to conform more of reality to your image by yesterday morning. I will pass.
A Personal Note and a View from the Mud
In that same Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus gives the core of church discipline to us, He also gives us a principle of wisdom that intersects. He said,
“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you” (Mat. 7:6).
Where I planted a church in Boise, Idaho some years ago, we had a saying that I coined. “Let’s not preach in the mud.” Church conflicts were unavoidable. It was an independent church plant filled with, and led by, young men trying to be counter-cultural. There was massive disagreement about what that entailed. Before long, division on paper turned into conspiracy and eventually character assassination. As such a season stretches out, there is a fine line for the preacher or teacher between appropriate corrections, generally communicated, and harder idea-stompings that are easily twisted into personal attacks.
To “preach in the mud” meant to be lured down from one’s moral high ground so that the opposition—which was otherwise disadvantaged in a lower position, whether in lower numbers, lower status, lower rank of authority, or simply lower capacity to discern or articulate relevant doctrinal truths—can shift the conflict from truth and justice to tones and taboos.
The imagery was taken from the ancient and medieval military strategy in which high grounds and low grounds functioned in this way. All we did was to combine that imagery with that used by Jesus in Matthew 7:6 about dogs and pigs to accommodate the sort of weapons and movements employed in this sort of conflict. Jesus was not engaging in cheap name-calling, and neither are we (at least, not automatically so) when we appropriate this wisdom.
In that low ground, there are two negative results of casting those pearls. Mud is flung and pearls are lost.
A fellow elder, who used to play the cello for the Boise Philharmonic, told me the story of an old tutor friend of his who once counselled him, “You should never try to teach a pig to play the piano.” My friend, slightly amused, asked why. He was told, “Two reasons. It won’t work. The pig will never learn.” But what is the other reason? my friend replied. “Oh, the pig will also get mad.”
That, in a nutshell, was Jesus’s point in Matthew 7:6. There just are people who, at least for the moment, descend to the level of the dog and the pig, having no higher use with your words than to cast aspersions (mud) upon the messenger and then destroy your reputation (tearing to pieces). They had no interest in the pearly truth. They are using you to get to someone else, and if you do not help them, they will throw you into the pit with their original villain.
Now there is a kind of mob organizer or hall monitor who is so persuaded that the pressing need of the hour is to rope the next person into their inquisition, that nothing I have said above will be of any use. To such a person, I relay one other story that will help clarify my stance. This story is also true. But fear not, I will give you the Disney version and only a brief trailer.
A long time ago, in a place far, far away, filled with names I will not mention, I too wanted to get to the bottom of things, not least of all because I was at the bottom of things! On the other hand, those who had been making trouble for me for a few years had now secured the entire leadership, and even a few leaders of other churches, as a secret mob. They were all still in the minority as far as membership at large was concerned, which is why they had to work in secret. If the church as a whole had found out what was afoot and what all the fuss was about, the ringleaders would have turned tail in shame and the rest of the mob dispersed. Well, that eventually happened, but not before the damage was done to my family. We had to start life over again. Not to worry. There was a process. It was all in Matthew 18. I even taught about it a few times during that season. But no one showed up. I mean, they showed up for the teachings, but not so much for the personal implementation phase. They didn’t show up to meet the mob.
In a classic case of Yeats’s famous words in the poem,
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst.
Are filled with passionate intensity.”
I remember when we arrived at seminary to start over in early 2016, the movie my kids watched in the back of the van was Horton Hears a Who. I heard it over and over again to the point of memorizing the lines. Partly to amuse myself, I suppose, I imagined the characters, scenes, and so forth, matched up to various elements of the drama we were escaping. In one otherwise insignificant scene there was that little mouse who talked a big game about being in Horton’s corner. Until the hall-monitoring kangaroo lady came around.
“This is weird. I’m out of here.”
I didn’t have to imagine that one. I had learned the hard way that the basic ethical confession of “the normies,” as the kids call them now, no matter how they might otherwise support you when the mud is out of sight, is a one-line creed: This is weird. I’m out of here. That’s it. It seems sometimes that that is all the current lot of brothers and sisters are capable of when the mud hits the pew.
The reality is that there are trouble-makers—servants of the gatekeepers—in the Reformed Evangelical world who see anyone they can turn over to their progressive overlords as notches in their belt, as “winsome points” with which their own stock can rise. They have not a care in the world about what someone’s actual views are, or actual meaning to words are; but such false witnesses are filled, as Yeats said, with “passionate intensity.” The same can not be said for even a true witness or two.
And so to those self-appointed (not by a legitimate church court, but simply on their own crusade) recruits of the winsome gestapo, I leave you with this. How much faith do I have that observers of social media conversation will do any better in evaluating the evidence than the church in Boise during that season did? Less than zero. Therefore, I reject. I will not take part. I will state all of my views in my own way and in my own time. Likely it is already clearly stated somewhere on the internet. If you need a link, I am happy to hit copy-paste. If you ignore the link and demand a rendition in your own framing, you have been disqualified as an honest inquirer.
To any who press beyond this perfectly reasonable explanation, I offer only the link to this article. A further pressing receives the link again until the point is clear. A third time receives a block. I have enough of my own mud. Go get some of your own.
The Bishops of Social Media hath no jurisdiction in this realm.
