When our church posted a picture of our sign featuring Bad Bunny’s halftime show quote, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” I wasn’t prepared for what followed. The comment section became a battleground. Strangers appeared to rage-shout into the abyss, calling us a demonic force. Others wanted theological debates about whether we should be quoting secular artists. Strangers and members alike rose to the church’s defense. As I scrolled through it all and tried to sort out my role as a pastor, I found myself thinking about Nicodemus.
You know the story. Jesus had been publicly debating with the Pharisees, calling them out and raising hard questions. Tensions ran high in those public confrontations. But then one of the Pharisees, Nicodemus, comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness. Away from the crowds and the showy performance of public disagreement, something different happens. The conversation becomes civil. Honest. Human.
There’s a tension here (and really throughout Jesus’ Ministry) between public and private dialogue. It’s an instructive tension and can serve those of us navigating combative comments sections, those digital spaces that feel simultaneously like a town square and a gladiatorial arena. Here are some of the lessons I think Nicodemus and Jesus’ conversation can offer us today.
Lead with love
One of the most important things I’ve learned: people often rage-post from a place of anger. They get an endorphin rush when their fury inspires more rants from the other side. It’s a feedback loop that feels good in the moment but leaves everyone more entrenched and less human to each other. What is the best thing to interrupt this cycle? Love. Love interrupts the algorithm of anger.
Love interrupts the algorithm of anger.
When we respond in love, it’s disarming. It causes people to pause. Suddenly they remember there’s another person on the other side of that keyboard, not just some faceless blurb of text representing everything they think is wrong with the world.
This doesn’t mean we’re doormats or that we avoid truth-telling. Jesus certainly didn’t. But it means we remember that the person typing those words, even harsh ones, is made in the image of God, probably carrying their own wounds, fears, and stories that brought them to this moment of digital fury.
Move to the DMs
Here’s the Nicodemus principle: when possible, consider responding to a harsh comment by direct messaging the person. Though it doesn’t always seem like it, the comment section is a public forum. No one likes being called out in public. It makes people feel like they’ve been put on the spot, like they have to defend themselves not just to you but to everyone watching. It ignites their fight or flight response.
When you message people privately, you’re doing what Jesus and Nicodemus did. You’re creating space for a different kind of conversation. You’re inviting them to lower the temperature and engage in much more civil discourse. You’re saying, “I see you as a person, not as a performance.”
I’ve done this a few times now, and I’m always surprised by how differently people respond when the audience is gone. The person who was shouting “demonic!” in all caps might actually have a genuine concern about theological integrity that they can articulate more thoughtfully when they’re not playing to the crowd. The theological debater might admit they’re really just hurt by feeling like the church they grew up in is changing too fast.
Our social media age has made everything a public stage. We’ve lost the art of private conversation, of working things out away from the spotlight.
There’s something else about Nicodemus coming at night that strikes me: the darkness wasn’t just about fear or secrecy. It was about intimacy. It was about getting away from the noise and the posturing and the public stakes of being seen as right or wrong.
Our social media age has made everything a public stage. We’ve lost the art of private conversation, of working things out away from the spotlight. Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is seek intimacy, creating spaces for actual dialogue instead of performance.
When public response is necessary
Of course, there are times when a public response is needed. Jesus’ ministry was a balance between the public sphere and the private. In the face of injustice, inequality, war, poverty, and human suffering, the church should be speaking out publicly. We have a role to play in advocating for the kingdom virtues of love and justice with a fuller throat. When misinformation is spreading, when harm is being done, when silence would be complicity, we need Presbyterians to engage in public discourse. We need our pastors and congregants to be speaking up in the comment sections and beyond in order to put Christ’s radical love on full display.
Jesus didn’t just have private conversations. He turned over tables. He called out hypocrisy. He stood publicly with the marginalized and spoke truth to power. Sometimes the most faithful witness is a public one: a sign on our lawn that declares what we believe, a post that stakes our claim in the kingdom values we’re committed to living out.
The question isn’t whether to be public, it’s how to be public in a way that reflects Christ.
Another thing we discovered from our Bad Bunny post: when we posted the picture of the sign and decided to respond to the comments with love-centered dialogue, we didn’t just get pushback. We also got a spike in new followers who are actually in our neighborhood. People commented in celebration that a church was saying something, that a church was living out its values in a way they could see and recognize. For every angry comment, there were also people who felt less alone, who thought maybe church could be a place for them after all.
Public witness matters. The question isn’t whether to be public, it’s how to be public in a way that reflects Christ.
The sign still stands
That sign with Bad Bunny’s quote is still up: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” It’s true whether it comes from a halftime show or the mouth of Jesus (consider Matthew 5:44, where Jesus commands us to love those whom we would prefer to hate: our enemies, and those who persecute us). And as I navigate the comments, some still trickling in, I’m trying to embody that truth.
I’m trying to remember Nicodemus, who came in the dark and left with light. I’m trying to create space for those kinds of conversations, even in the digital noise. I’m trying to know when to speak publicly and when to move privately, when to take a stand and when to extend an invitation. And through it all, I’m trying to lead with love, because that really is the only thing more powerful than hate.
Even in the comments.
