There are two kinds of people in the world- those who know there are one kind of people in the world and those who are mistaken. People are people, which is enough to encourage us to treat others with dignity and enough to cause us all to blush in shame knowing we fail to do so. We all agree that social media has not been a boon to our civility. Often we reason that it is the distance that the computer provides, that it is because we don’t talk face to face that explains our willingness to bite and devour each other. I concur that such is a vital part of it. I’d like, however, to posit another element.
We feel free to verbally assault others, to slice with our tongues, not just because we are unknown but because the people we assault are known. We think that people more well known than we are aren’t actually people at all. Of late a certain well-known in that pond we know as Big Eva, now ex-vangelical was found shilling a program to help others deconstruct their faith, all for a low, low price. I never met the man, but I knew his mother, consider his father a friend and know several of his brothers. I watched my corner of the twittersphere respond like sharks responding to a stuck pig that somehow found itself near a lot of nasty sharks. Some might argue that I am among the guiltiest, having tweeted my hope that the pain and hardship of being cut off from the body might drive ex-vangelicals back into the embrace of His bride.
I get it. This young man was a beloved son in our tribe who has turned his back on it, and now seems to be ex-vangelizing. I can see seeing him as an enemy. Such, however, doesn’t justify the assaults. The One who defines us, yes, who emptied the temple and had some hard words for the Pharisees, told us to love our enemies. I could not help but feel, however, that the hatred aimed at this young man came not from anger that he left us, but anger that he had been a success among us.
As exhibit A in defense of this thesis I give you Ed Litton. Ed Litton did not abandon the faith. He isn’t offering directions out the door of the church. Yet he too, just weeks ago, became lunch for the same sharks when he was found to have delivered undocumented sermons. I haven’t done the research to know how bad, or even if it is bad and have no comment on that. I comment instead on the comments. Christians had a field day mocking this brother mercilessly. The meme machine overheated after running overtime.
It happens friends because we dehumanize those more well known than we are. We think that because they have the benefits that fame affords that they are invulnerable to our attacks. And that they deserve them. When I gently asked that maybe we might want to show some grace to Ed Litton I even got pushback from someone arguing that I only spoke in defense of Ed because I’ve been in a similar position. “Of course you’d say that RC. After all, you’re in that club, people known well enough in the evangelical world to have your failures become fodder.” Guilty as charged. Worse still, I have been guilty of being a shark as well. Hopefully, being on the other side, I’m learning.
None of which changes the point. Believer or not, world famous or merely a big fish in our pond, or even just the son of a big fish in our pound, people are people. All of us bear our Father’s image. Some of us are His adopted children. Shouldn’t we do better?