Social Networking: Integration or Isolation?

Today while lunching with my co-workers we commented on how ironic it is that social networking seems to be creating a network of lonely people. Just a few weeks ago I re-initiated my Facebook profile mainly to connect with family (and a few friends), although I remain ambivalent about this decision. I do appreciate seeing others’ posts, comments, pictures, too; at least most of them (wink).

Stephen Marche’s article “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” featured in The Atlantic (see here for a good video exchange) opines that “loneliness and narcissism are intimately connected….Narcissism is the flip side of loneliness, and either condition is a fighting retreat from the messy reality of other people.” Marche also states:

Curating the exhibition of the self has become a 24/7 occupation. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, the Australian study “Who Uses Facebook?” found a significant correlation between Facebook use and narcissism: “Facebook users have higher levels of total narcissism, exhibitionism, and leadership than Facebook nonusers,” the study’s authors wrote. “In fact, it could be argued that Facebook specifically gratifies the narcissistic individual’s need to engage in self-promoting and superficial behavior.”

Wowsers! Of course, Facebook is not the only tool used to promote one’s self. Blogging is no small opportunity in the same direction (ugh!).

The first instance in Scripture about loneliness is God’s declaration “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). So God made another human to provide the interaction necessary to build a wholesome, relational life full of wonder, joy, mystery, and yes, the possibility of more humans!

Just as man needs woman, people need people. Discipleship that has a lasting effect must be done “in the flesh.” Fellowship that is truly meaningful occurs with real people in real time and in real space without the hinderance of a monitor sitting in between. Granted I have had moving phone conversations and received countless encouragements by reading other blogs, but 1 John opens the way it does for a reason.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

(1 Jn 1:1–4)

Perhaps this is why the Incarnation of God in Jesus is so profound. Christ is, after all, “Immanuel, God with us.”

All of this speak about the relational fracturing and isolated lives that social networking seems to accommodate reminded me of an email my wife and I received the day before Mother’s Day. It was from some dear neighbors who we quickly learned were also our beloved family in Christ. I would venture to say that no digital connection could ever forge the bond like what we have with our friends. Though we now share only a virtual relationship because they’re living far away, we are thankful to God for the ministry we’ve had to and with them and the blessing they’ve been to us because of our face-to-face engagements.

Soli Deo gloria!

The Most Important Doctrine

Every human requires it.
Only Christianity provides it.

On a human level, see Chris Brauns’s book Unpacking Forgiveness, my review (here), a synthesis between Brauns’s work and N. T. Wright’s (here), and my two posts on Miraslov Volf’s work Free of Charge (here and here).

Church Leadership

My swipe at a doctrinal statement regarding leadership. Note the only distinction among elders/leaders is one of giftedness, not gender.

Jesus Christ is the Lord and sole Head (source and authority) of the true Church and every local expression of the true Church has the privilege, under Christ, to choose and govern its own affairs within the confines of Scripture. As the Body of Christ the Church includes all believers of all ages, from every tribe, and tongue, people, and nation. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through the loving guidance and capable leadership of a team of biblically qualified elders who shall be viewed as co-equal in status and authority but distinct in function as God has enabled and gifted them. Individuals are responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord and to their leaders as shepherds. (See Matthew 16:15-19; 18:15-20; Acts 2:41-42,47; 5:11-14; 6:3-6; 13:1-3; 14:23,27; 15:1-30; 16:5; 20:28; Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 3:16; 5:4-5; 7:17; 9:13-14; 12; Ephesians 1:22-23; 2:19-22; 3:8-11,21; 4:11-16; 5:22-32; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:18; 1 Timothy 2:9-14; 3:1-15; 4:14; Hebrews 13:7, 17; 1 Peter 5:1-4; Revelation 2-3; 21:2-3)

Your thoughts?

The Price of Misdiagnosing Our Moral Problem

Graham A. Cole, in Do Christians Have a Worldview?, writes:

Frank Furedi, a sociology professor at the University of Kent, wrote a witty piece entitled “The Seven Deadly Ills” for The Spectator. In it he makes a stunning admission for a secularist. Perhaps we need the Christian category of “sin” after all.

Once upon a time, there were seven deadly sins. They were called deadly because they lead to spiritual death and therefore damnation. The seven sins were (and are): lust, glut-tony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride. Now, all of them, with the exception of pride, have become medical conditions. Pride has become a virtue.

The trouble is, according to Furedi, that to medicalize a moral problem prevents its remedy [emphasis mine]. He concludes:

To be honest, as a humanist, I don’t much like the idea of sin. But given the choice of being powerless in the face of God or an impotent client of a therapist, I side with the church. Therapeutic definitions of addiction elevate the sense of human powerlessness to a level unimaginable in medieval times. . . . Addicts are told that they will never be com-pletely cured. We have recovering sex addicts, recovering religious addicts and recover-ing alcoholics. No one ever really changes.

Furedi is not opposed to therapy per se. Rather he is alarmed by the way we avoid moral responsibility with a linguistic sleight of hand.

John Piper’s Tacit Hat Tip to Biblical Egalitarianism?

John Stackhouse has some interesting comments on the recent utterings by John Piper that Christianity is a masculine religion.
He concludes:

One interesting implication of this overly-simple way of looking at things would then be that we ought to have ONLY women lead the church and the Christian family, in order to teach and model for all of us how to be properly feminine in response to our masculine God.

So is John Piper actually opening the door to the feminizing of Christianity and sneakily laying the groundwork for an exclusively female clergy? Is he in fact a feminist wolf in complementarian sheep’s clothing, finally revealing his true colours? It’s fun to consider, but of course he’s not. What he is, instead, is just a brother arguing a bit badly.

Let’s keep hearing John Piper on the good things he has to say. And let’s just set aside those things he says–and we all say such things at times, especially those of us, like him and like me, that say a lot–that really aren’t so good.

Read the whole thing.