Social Media, Perception, and Lack of Critical Analysis

In a social media-saturated culture we are offered any number of stories and photos insisting that certain events or images are indisputably true. Take, for example, the following pair of photographs:

The captions suggest that there is something lacking in the 2015 photo. Is it simply the lack of American flags? Or is it something deeper, something more sinister—like a lack of patriotism in the current US president and the people who rally around him? Hmmmm . . .

There is clearly a lack of American flags in the lower photograph. That photo, however, has been cropped. When you search around and find a more expansive shot of the same scene, you get this:

There are, indeed, flags present. Instead of being waved in victory in the crowd, they are proudly displayed at the front of the buildings along the street. The first photograph is a celebration; the second is a memorial. Both have flags.

Only two things would keep people from making this discovery:

1. A desire that the dark, sinister version of the story would be true; and/or
2. A lack of critical analysis.

We see this kind of thing all the time on social media. I’ve recently seen social media threads expressing dismay over the dismissal of employees at Christian organizations in three different states. The comments that follow the stories are overwhelmingly supportive of the seemingly wronged employees and offer harsh criticisms of the offending organizations.

From what I can tell, the comments come from people who are bright and well-educated. But the streams of comments appear to lack two important elements:

1. A voice at the conversation table by someone who expresses an alternative view.
2. Any sense of critical analysis

Consequently, the story ends up offering only one side, and that side may or not be accurate. We could be looking at a cropped picture, but it’s difficult for us to tell.

Which is why the lack of critical analysis is so alarming to me.

I’m struggling to understand how these intelligent people would read an account of conflict on the Internet and offer unbridled support without making some attempt to understand the larger picture. As I’ve looked over these threads of discussion, I have not been able to find anyone speaking who suggests that there might be a more to consider before making a judgment on the situation. I’m troubled by that. I’m troubled at the absence of healthy, well-intended critical analysis.

I’d hate to be arrested for a crime, and then sent to trial, only to discover that the judge and jury have decided to only allow the prosecutor to speak, giving the defender no opportunity to make a case on my behalf. But in our social media world, we get to do that all the time.

And the whole world listens in.

On Suicide

I need to take a brief break from my series on heresy to comment about something else.

I am saddened by the death of Rick and Kay Warren’s son, Matthew, and I pray for them. A lot of people have offered condolences and prayer, and I am grateful for those thoughtful responses. But I am also horrified by the hateful social media comments that some people—Christian and non-Christian alike—have so quickly unleashed, like scorpions out of a demonic fire hose.

This tragic situation has also caused some other people to share their personal grief about losing someone to suicide, not only in an attempt to empathize with the Warren family, but also to ask some very real and painful questions about what happens when human beings voluntarily end their lives.

Does God abandon them for all of eternity?

There was a time in the history of the Christian church—both Catholic and Protestant—that a doctrine about suicide insisted that there was not hope for salvation for a person dying in such a way. After all, murder is a grave sin, right? But a murderer can later repent and seek God’s forgiveness. But a suicide cannot do that. It’s too late.

So, a genocidal maniac can kill untold numbers of people and then confess and repent just before the hangman’s noose snaps his neck, and he gets an eternal get-out-of-jail free card (even though his victims might have been denied that opportunity). But the person suffering deep pain, depression, and hopelessness is denied such grace? There is clearly something wrong with this way of thinking.

The Roman Catholic Church has changed its doctrine on the subject. Pity, compassion, and prayer for the mercy of God are the proper responses rather than the insistence on eternal condemnation. Most Protestants take the same view. I’m sure there are others in the mix holding on to the old view. You can hear from some of them on Twitter and Facebook.

The apostle Paul says something very important about human death and how it relates to God:

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ 
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39)

We speak of Jesus as one who has “abolished death” (2 Timothy 1:10), and we see death as an inevitable event for all people, but an event that has lost its sting (1 Corinthians 15:55).

In the death of Jesus, God destroyed the power of death to have the last word. Death, by whatever means, has lost its sting. There is no deathly power that can trump God’s love. Even death by one’s own hand.

O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ, destroyed death, and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that your servant Matthew, being raised with him, may know the strength of his presence, and rejoice in his eternal glory; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)