Title: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society Author: Eugene H. Peterson Publisher: IVP Publishing Date: May 11, 2021 Pages: 224 (Paperback) ISBN: 978-0830848638 “There is nothing else. Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”1 If you are like me, this stops …
As Christians we often talk about the Imago Dei—the Image of God. I think all Christians would like to be healthy and effective witnesses, so here is my recommendation for how we can do better at loving the world in social media, and how we can be more discerning.
In this symposium style review, Matt Drissell (Associate Professor of Art), Leah Zuidema (Vice President for Online & Graduate Education), and Dave Mulder (Associate Professor of Education) each bring perspectives from their area of expertise to discuss Jenny Odell’s book.
Singer and Brooking bring these things to bear in their book, a clarion call for governments, corporations, and individuals alike to take stock of the impact of social media in our contemporary age. Even if warfare and public policy aren’t your thing, Singer and Brooking’s message should not be ignored.
Few things will give you a better glimpse at total depravity in action than browsing the comments section of an online publication. How do we disrupt the cycle of unproductive, unloving public dialogue and resist the impulse to hide behind relative anonymity?
Cell phones and social media have changed the landscape of communication and society.
Slacktivism requires minimal effort and can often even assuage our guilt about being overly consumeristic—by being consumers—but for a good cause.
Perhaps non-engagement is not an option, and we should think of social media in terms of strategic entanglement rather than strategic withdrawal.
Our inner work makes honest engagement with another’s sin not only possible, but possibly transformational. It also frees us to know and be known by God.
God never intended us to go through life’s struggles alone. He desires for us to be in community with others and to love, support, and share. But sharing what is really going on in our lives can be difficult, especially when it is so much easier to share just the “perfect” things in life.
I wonder sometimes about our own engagement with social issues on social media. Why do we share the things we share, engage the issues we engage, avoid the issues we avoid?
We’re told that people look at the outward appearance, but that God looks at the heart. I’m still only beginning to realize just how beautiful it is that our God doesn’t look at us the way we look at each other.
I desire to live in true thankfulness and gratitude—for every piece of the woman whom God created me to be. Yet it is counted false if the successes of those around me cause me to doubt my own identity.
About three and a half years ago I decided to delete my Facebook account. I had several reasons, but the biggest was a concern for how social media was forming and shaping me to be more self-focused, rather than less.
Using social media is often considered a standard, and any time you’re not using a standard, you ought to have good reason.
The first few hopefuls for the 2016 Presidential race have begun making announcements over the past couple of weeks. Many more will be making their aspirations to higher office official in the near future. And, along with those announcements, the chatter on Facebook and Twitter are already ramping up. Have you seen it already?