Why I choose to #optout

I’ve arrived at the conclusion that social media is responsible for a number of ills in our society.

• It has allowed us to be ideologically isolated while feeling an illusory sense connection.
• It has allowed us to shout into the ether rather than silently ponder.
• It has enabled numerical support (hashtags) to trump the internal coherence of an argument.
• It has pushed nuance to the margin and created conversations driven by superficial, context-less punch lines.

For these reasons and more, I’ve essentially opted out of social media.

I make the odd appearance on Facebook and occasionally tweet.

In general, however, I really don’t care to be in on the many futile and intellectually-stunted conversations that occur in these media.

Offer your pithy indictments of “white evangelicals,” President Trump, Roy Moore, reformed Christians, republicans, Hillary Clinton, class inequality, critical race theory, to someone else.

I’m one man and I’ve done what I can do.

Like Frodo and Sam, I am choosing to be faithful in the small things that I can control.

Since you’re obviously more of a Saruman, I’ll let you wrestle with the grand unifying theory.

Let me know how it works out.

The way forward for me is not in the big and bold. Instead it is in living a very ordinary life of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in communion with Christ’s church.

I’m not going to change the world. That’s not my job.

I’m not going redeem culture. That’s not the church’s calling.

I am simply going to do my best to follow Christ as he has instructed me–growing in grace through the ordinary means of grace.