Reformation Faith Today

Jordan Ballor at the Acton Institute wrote a helpful piece on the subject. He writes in part

In the post-industrial Information age, Christians remain at the forefront of social and cultural formation. In the context of the developments at the dawn of the third millennium, the engagement of church and culture has taken on a new form, focused most especially on new forms of technology and communication. The internet in particular, and related “new” media, have raised important issues for the ways in which Christians communicate with each other and with non-Christians.

So what can we say positively about how discourse in the digital age ought to proceed, particularly in media like blogs and postings on social networks? Our dialogue needs to consist in at least three inter-related elements: charity, civility, and humility. We need to proceed in our conversations with fellow Christians and non-believers in a way that is oriented toward loving them as image-bearers of God. “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Gal. 6:10).

When we are disagreeing or arguing with someone, we ought not resort to insults or demeaning characterizations simply to “win” the dispute. This doesn’t mean that disagreement should cease in favor of a sentimental “kumbaya,” post-modern “Can’t we all just get along?” mentality. What it does mean is that our language should be oriented toward loving reconciliation.

Again, we can disagree, often sharply, without using rhetorical techniques designed to impugn the dignity of the other person. In fact, a full-blown concept of love requires that we correct others when we see that they are in error, but that we do so carefully and lovingly. Both of the commandments discussed above also include the positive duty to, in the case of blasphemy, not “share in such horrible sins by being silent bystanders,” or with regard to interpersonal communication, “love the truth, speak it candidly, and openly acknowledge it.”

As Augustine has put it, “The interpreter and teacher of the divine scriptures, therefore, the defender of right faith and the hammer of error, has the duty of both teaching what is good and unteaching what is bad; and in this task of speaking it is his duty to win over the hostile, to stir up the slack, to point out to the ignorant what is at stake and what they ought to be looking for” (De Doctrina Christiana, IV.4.6). Or as Bonhoeffer writes in Life Together, “Christians need other Christians who speak God’s Word to them. They need them again and again when they become uncertain and disheartened because, living by their own resources, they cannot help themselves without cheating themselves out of the truth.”

This conception of charity relates to the second point regarding civility. Os Guinness has succinctly defined what civil discourse should look like: “It is not to be confused with niceness and mere etiquette or dismissed and squeamishness about differences. It is a tough, robust, substantive concept that is a republican virtue, critical to both democracy and civil society, and a manner of conduct that will be decisive for the future of the American republic.”

Read the entire post here.