A while back I decided to quit facebook because I felt it was doing more harm than good. Today, I hear from so many with Facebook accounts about the hard feelings and decisiveness resulting from postings by friends, family members, and believers regarding their positions on social events and politics. What may folks do not realize is that Facebook, like many other social platforms, collects data on all of us which is then shared with or sold to others who use it to manipulate each of us based on our positions regarding faith, politics, social events and much more.
For people of faith, critical platforms such as abortion and pro-choice are used to generate specific messages on our respective Facebook pages to lead us from one site to another bolstering our beliefs and demonizing anyone who believes different. In the end, we become polarized to the point where we fail to hear another person's perspective or worse yet, react to it with anger and disdain. In the end, we are more divided along political lines and faith from other believers, friends and family than ever before.
Most concerning is the reality that people of faith have aligned themselves with positions that contradict the biblical teachings and principles critical to living a faith based life. As people of faith, we cannot align ourselves with those who preach hate, condemnation, vindictiveness, verbal abuse, and physical violence. We should not be manipulated into forgetting that we are called to love our enemies, to forgive them, to share God's word with them and to lead them by living in accordance with the biblical principles which are a testimony to our faith in Christ. Included in these are the two great commandments Christ gave us, love the lord thy God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as you love yourself. If we adhere to these two commandments, then we should find a place in our hearts for those who are different as demonstrated by Christ on many occasions. We can impact those around us by the grace we demonstrate towards them, a grace that will help us learn to be respectful towards each other. Just a little advice to go!
No comments:
Post a Comment