Evangelicalism
today appeals to people on the basis of what they want. The contemporary church
for decades has been more interested in meeting the needs of its members than
urging them to follow the commands of Christ.
Neil
Postman, a Jewish humanist from the 1980’s wrote a book entitled, “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” He felt back then that there was a tragic loss of serious
thinking in Western civilization which he attributed to television. He could
not have possibly imagined the big screen going to a small screen – from being
a group experience and public experience to being an intimate, personal,
private experience.
The
iPhone and other small screen devices enable every person to become a creator
of his own private world. “It is a secret world,” explains pastor and acclaimed
Bible expositor John MacArthur. “It is a secret world of preferences. It is a
secret world of temptations. It is a secret world of relationships. It is a
secret world that has a force and ubiquity that is unparalleled in human
history. Unparalleled.”
The
small screen is the most selfish necessity ever devised. Once, you had a phone
to talk to someone. No more. Technology has put in the hand, and soon, on the
ears and the nose, of everyone, the most constant, incessant, accessible,
visual, private world of self-centered indulgence, temptation, and
entertainment ever conceived.
“You
choose everything,” MacArthur continues. “Choose your entertainment, and no one
knows. You choose your music. You choose your relationships. You become God in
your little world. And on your little screen, you create the world that you
want. You are the creator of your own private universe. And outside your own private cyberspace, and
your Facebook friends, is the outer darkness of whatever and whomever you
reject.”
Theologian
Carl Trueman writes, “The language of friendship is hijacked and cheapened by
the internet social networks. I don’t know what friendship is anymore. The language of Facebook both reflects and
encourages childishness. Childishness, he writes, “has become something of a
textually transmitted disease.”
A very
astute comment by Trueman as the number one characteristic of a child is
complete self-centeredness. He goes on to say that relationships play out in
the disembodied world of the web. The latest statistics indicate that on
average high school students look at a small screen nine hours a day. Nine
hours. Trueman further writes, “Such are human amoebas, subsisting in a bizarre
non-world that involves no risk to themselves, no giving of themselves to
others, no true vulnerability, no commitment, no sacrifice, no real meaning,
and no value.”
Real
fellowship cannot exist in a world of self-created avatars. It requires real
persons. Christianity is not an
individual or private experience. We were not meant to live by ourselves in a
world of isolation where we control everything without anyone else’s knowledge.
That’s a recipe for disaster.
“The
current trend is for people to create their own virtual world of virtual self,”
observes MacArthur. “They recreate themselves as wonderfully as they would like
themselves to be, and then project themselves that way. You can upload your
self-creation into the Eden of the internet, the perfect you. Beautiful,
indomitable, intelligent, wise, cool, self-actualized like some technological
form of science. You can create
a digitized self-projection of your idyllic design. I tweet, therefore I am.”
The
culture of this is becoming more isolated, more narcissistic, more
self-absorbed, more individualistic, more morally relative, more entitled. Deadly.
This
might be tolerable and maybe understood if it stayed outside the church, but it
doesn’t. According to MacArthur, the evangelical church has been trying to give
the culture what it wants. And what is it that people want? “They want privacy,”
he says, “They want convenience. They want low commitment. They want anonymity.
They want unaccountability. And mostly, they want self-promotion and
self-actualization. Church life is falling victim to this seductive
self-design. People say, oh, it’s so hard to find a church. Well, of course. You
have created the first church of my personal iTunes. You’ve created your own music. You have your
own playlist. You’ve created your own messengers. You know who you want to
hear. You’ve created your own friends. You don’t feel comfortable at a church
because you might run into an enemy.”
And at
the same time, there’s pressure from church growth experts saying, “What are
you doing with social media? What are you doing with technology to help people
know your church?” Of course the church has to embrace technology and social
media on one level and use the tools for good – to connect and inform. But, as
with everything, they can also be a source of isolation, disconnection, and
ultimately temptation if not properly handled and monitored.
As a
church body, we have to keep fellowship at the forefront. True, personal
fellowship is the foundation of the church as underscored in the Book of
Acts which details the early church and its ability to sustain its existence
largely because of the strength of its fellowship. Everything about
Christianity fights against privacy, and yet, we live in a world where privacy
dominates. If we are not actively fighting against it than we are being pulled
into it.
As
ambassadors of Jesus Christ, it is our mandate to share his gospel – the forgiveness
of sins at the cross of Calvary. It is a personal relationship that Christ
beckons and then bids us to share with others. Fellowship at its essence.
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