To condemn or underutilize these new mediums of communication is to deny the historic pattern of Christianity and to forfeit the future spread of the Gospel.
After a failed attempt at an internal social networking site, our church created a Facebook page and began to send out daily tweets (the endearing term for sending out messages of 140 characters or less to followers via the Web site Twitter). Besides announcements about events and occasional scriptural encouragements, several pastors, including myself, have begun to tweet as well. Recent tweets have included prayer requests, theological insights gained from prayer or Bible study, updates on where we are engaging in ministry, and more. I documented a recent mission trip to the Dominican Republic with pictures and testimonies. I received great feedback as others were able to vicariously experience the work of God in that place. Yes, via Twitter, people experienced the work of the Lord. Ironically, while writing this article, one of our church’s saints at the Westminster Tower assisted living residence wrote me an e-mail of thanks for my tweets!
Christians debate the use of these emerging mediums. Some argue that Twitter is merely a prideful pursuit that leads one to commit one of the seven deadly sins: vainglory (pride). From the Latin v?na gl?ria, for empty pride, the perception is that Twitter is about aggrandizing the person who sends out the tweet. This criticism is warranted and one to take seriously, however, it is not any more of a danger than the aggrandizement that can occur when religious leaders regularly preach before large audiences, represent a church to an outside group, or even write editorials.
Sociologists partly attribute the success of Christianity to the unique ability of the religious tradition to contextualize itself among a variety of cultures, languages, and ethnicities. The same cannot be said for other religious traditions that rely on force or theological argument to insist upon certain religious rites, ancient languages for sacred texts, or strict definitions of acceptable leadership. This leads to the subjugation of culture to faith in an abusive manner or the failure of a religious tradition to survive.
Missionary-cum-theologian Lesslie Newbigin writes, “True contextualization happens when there is a community which lives faithfully by the gospel and in that same costly identification with people in their real situations as we see in the earthly ministry of Jesus.” This value of contextualization is deeply embedded in the Christian approach, rooted in the call of Jesus to share the Gospel to the ends of the earth, the appeal by Paul in 1 Corinthians 9 to become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some; and to the pragmatic context of a Jewish sect that evolved in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic Roman empire in which non-Jews, or Gentiles, became the primary carrier of the faith. For Christianity it’s the message of Jesus that matters, not necessarily the way in which that message gets expressed, institutionalized, ritualized, or otherwise tamed.
The faith evolved with the advent of the printing press, which put Biblical literacy at the forefront of the Protestant tradition as a backlash against the sacramental focus of the Middle Ages. Christianity has kept up with globalization by translating the Bible to more and more tongues and evolving its worship practices to match the sounds of the tribe, festival, or radio. Architecturally the faith has evolved from house fellowships, to permanent shrines of worship, to comprehensive community centers with recreation centers and coffee houses as the needs, and permissions, of society have shifted.
When it comes to Twitter and other social networks, a basic truth in Christian doctrine reminds us that tweeting in and of itself is not sinful; it is the use of the medium and its purpose that matters. To that end, the following guidelines enable the church to appropriately incorporate this tool.
• Keep Christ and His work as the focus of one’s tweets. When tweets revolve around my own daily hygiene activities, personal agendas, or moments of pride or false humility, they do not edify the work of the church.
• Entries need to be substantive and not silly. Although humor is appropriate and helps to show the authentic nature of religious leadership to his or her congregation, a value expected and demanded by emerging generations, focusing on Scriptural reflections, community announcements, and personal revelations from God are most productive.
• Church leadership should encourage those who wish to follow tweets and refrain from condemning those who don’t. Just as 100% of congregants do not engage the sermon or read the monthly newsletter, a variety of variables will prevent someone from ever appreciating tweets, including one’s generational perspective or comfort with technology.
• Finally, tweeting is not a replacement for deep theological reflection, nor do religious leaders pretend it to be so. Nothing replaces Aquinas’ Summa Theologica or Barth’s voluminous Church Dogmatics. And Scripture stands alone in significance. But, tweeting is a way to speak the language of an emerging culture focused on the things of God, albeit condensed to 140 characters per message!
I never dreamed I would add the word tweet to my pastoral duties that already included praying, leading, teaching, reconciling, worshiping, or theological reflection. Yet, whether or not I cling unnecessarily to my old practices of spiritual leadership or defend my current ones, the culture will continue evolving with or without the Gospel. I choose the former.
Case Thorp is the associate pastor for mission and evangelism at First Church of Orlando, Fla.
