I’m not as much of a twitter warrior, or I suppose X-man might now be the term, than I once was. The medium I love, with its character limitations driving us more toward the poetic than the precise and careful. But, like many, over the years I’ve learned that the thrill of the battle comes at a high cost. And that real victory is as elusive as Narnia’s White Stag.
Real victory is what happens when a person believes x, engages in a twitter conversation, however long it might be, and through my careful arguments comes to believe non-x. It has happened, about as often as an unassisted triple play. Far more frequently, however, what happens is this. I interact with person believing x. I demonstrate clearly and inescapably, that x is false. Said person leaves the conversation still believing x.
That said, one of the most frequent arguments you’ll find me making these days is that we are all sinners, all blind to our own sins and weaknesses, that our complaints about other humans tend to land on us as well and that our umbrage is more comical than compelling. Years ago, in the days of AOL chatrooms I was visiting a Christian chatroom when who should enter in but a fellow with the handle, “GayforGod.” I determined to sit back and watch. The conversation slowed, discomfort scrambling our modems. Finally, some earnest young believer asked the obvious question, “How can you be gay for God?”
Gay didn’t really have much time to answer because all the other believers in the room first clutched their pearls, then turned on their brother like Antifa after Andy Ngo. “How can you possibly say such a thing?” “Who are you to judge another?” “Jesus welcomed everyone. Why are you being such an un-Christlike jerk?” I let the bile spill all over the information superhighway before finally coming to the young man’s aid. I did so by asking the room, “Don’t you think you all are being just a little judgmental?” “No, no” they insisted, “it’s that cruel un-Christlike jerk that’s being judgmental.” “Don’t you think you all are judging him a little harshly?” Only one person even understood a little bit. “I’m sorry,” he wrote, “I don’t want to be judgmental. I wouldn’t be, except that this young man, well, he was just so judgmental and mean and ugly and awful.”
The lesson here isn’t about homosexuals and their allies. The lesson is that we are all profoundly weak at recognizing when we’ve been beaten. We seem to think that if we refuse to leave the table we’re not really In checkmate. Thinking you are winning when you’ve lost is just losing one more time.
The good news is, however, that losing can be winning. When we see where our own logic failed us, when someone rightly brings God’s Word to bear on our mistakes, we get closer to the truth, if we’re willing to concede. When we confess to a wrong attitude and ask for God’s grace to help us, we find forgiveness and strength to do better. There is no shame in being wrong. The only shame is failing to admit when we are wrong. God gives grace to the humble. Let us be bold about His truth, and humble about ourselves.