In this week's conversation between Dr. James Emery White and co-host Alexis Drye, they discussed a recent article by Michael Hidalgo in RELEVANT titled “When Did Christians Get So Mean?” Since the pandemic, we've watched as the world seems to increasingly thrive on spewing vitriol from behind their keyboards. But more and more this behavior is coming from those who claim to be Christ followers. The concepts of grace and loving kindness seem to have gone out the window.
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The Bible offers very clear counsel on the power of words and the use of our mouths. Dr. White mentioned several passages that many Christians need to keep in the forefront of their minds:
“It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.”
- James 3:5-6, The Message
“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”
- James 1:19, NIV
“Too much talk leads to sin. Be sensible and keep your mouth shut.”
- Proverbs 10:19, NLT
As mentioned earlier, a lack of grace is a significant contributor to this problem, which is ironic as grace is what makes the Christian faith so distinct from other world religions. Dr. White recently delivered a series at Mecklenburg Community Church specifically on the topic of grace titled “Christianity's Most Scandalous Idea.” You can find that series HERE.
There are also two books that Dr. White suggested to listeners related to today's topic. The first is #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media written by Cass Sunstein. In this book Sunstein talks about the “daily ME,” where we now customize our social media feeds to see only the world that we want to see. Driven by insecurity, all this seems to do is increasingly cause hostility to ideas different from our own. The second book is The Bait of Satan written by John Bevere that explores how we are so eager to take offense at what others say and do.
Finally, if you're interested in listening to some other Church & Culture Podcast episodes that may shed further light on this topic, be sure to check out CCP6: On Anger and CCP13: On Cancel Culture.
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