Every advance in technology designed to improve our lives seems to create new problems and challenges. The cell phone, which allows us to be constantly accessible, also interrupts meals, concerts, meetings, sermons and even prayer.
The television with its marvelous ability to transmit news with pictures around the world also is responsible for lowering moral standards, creating obsession with celebrities, fostering materialism, even prohibiting physical fitness and encouraging obesity.
The Internet is a marvelous invention. It allows us instant access to information. It enables us to instantly and inexpensively communicate to friends and family across the country or around the world. We can access news, sermons, music, and devotionals of every sort.
On the Internet, we can build social networks and connect with the daily lives of our friends and family. We can access blogging sites and gain information from and endless list of sources.
But we've learned we can't always trust the Internet. We know that we can’t with confidence say “It must be true because I saw it on the Internet.” The Internet is a constant source of mis-information. Emails forwarded to multiple addresses multiple times perpetuate urban legends and fabrication. Wikipedia is no longer considered a reliable research source because anyone can insert information on Wikipedia.
And we’re all familiar with the very serious and increasingly pervasive problem of internet pornography which is destroying careers, marriages, and personal lives of both men and women.
But here’s another issue. Rudeness and lack of civility. I follow several periodicals that make their content available on email. Some of these content distributors also allow readers to blog, or add their own comments or reaction to those articles.
Internet anonymity removes inhibitions. And what appalls me is the how the anonymity provided by the Web gives people the boldness to be totally rude, un-civil, unkind, and un-Christian. It’s great we’re giving people a voice. But what that amounts to is that it’s attracting hateful people who use the web blog in a way that is angry, crude and hurtful.
Recently a widely read Christian magazine featured an article on a well-known ministry who with wisdom and courage conducted a thorough survey on their own effectiveness in achieving their goal of spiritual growth in their members. What they found revealed they were missing the mark and their people were not maturing into Christ-centered believers.
This ministry had to courage and humility to reveal the results and announce their commitment to make adjustments in their approach to ministry. Some readers responded on the magazine’s blog with accusations, finger-pointing, strongly-worded, judgmental criticism. Rather than commend this ministry for their humility and courage, they piled on the unkind, destructive and hurtful diatribe.
The popularity of the web and the anonymity it provides may all contribute to this unhealthy environment. I see it in some of the email that comes to my in-box as well.
Well, whether we’re speaking one-on-one, face to face; or whether we’re making anonymous comments on a blog, we need to remember the Biblical exhortation to kindness, gentleness and self-control. Speaking the truth. Absolutely. But always speaking truth…with love.
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