Introduction
I am not a trained cultural critic or a digital media analyst, but I deeply believe that it is always helpful to look at whatever we are facing within ourselves, inside the Christian community, and in the surrounding culture through the lens of Scripture and the particular lens of the gospel. It is this discipline that has guided every book I have written. With each book I am asking the question “What would this thing look like if I were to view it from the vantage point of the gospel?” For most people the gospel is a means of past justification and future destination. Gloriously, the gospel is both of these things, but it also provides for us, right here, right now, a way of seeing, a means of interpreting, a guide to understanding, and a way of living. The truths of the gospel, its comfort, and its call give us a brand-new way of understanding and dealing with everything in our lives. The gospel is the gracious gift of the one who promised to give us everything we need not just for eternal life but also for godliness, that is, a God-honoring life between the time he takes us as his own and the time we go home to be with him.
It is important to remember that your Bible is comprehensive and not exhaustive. It does not tell you everything about everything. If your Bible were exhaustive, you’d have to transport it in five 18-wheelers to church on Sunday. There are many things the Bible is not a source of information for. But your Bible is comprehensive; while not telling you everything about everything, it gives you a lens through which to look at everything. It is with this understanding that I have written this book. I am giving you everything you need to understand our present culture, particularly our social media culture. The purpose of this book is to look at the culture of toxic reactivity, which seems to touch all of us daily, through the lens of the gospel. When we look at the dominant themes in our culture this way, we find understanding, clarity, calling, new direction, and hope. I have spent my life unpacking the glory, beauty, and depth of the gospel. This is the lane that God has called me to, and I plan on staying in that lane until I’m on the other side.
We live in the boisterous noise of a confusing world of thousands of voices. In the din of the noise, it’s hard to hear yourself think. And with the power of digital media, it is nearly impossible to escape the cacophony and have enough quiet to meditate and evaluate. We carry a little device in our pockets or in our purses that connects us to thousands of opinions on thousands of topics every single day. Self-appointed influencers tell us how we should think and how we should react. No topic, no matter how small or how deeply significant, is left untouched. It seems as if everybody has something to say about everything. This creates confusion, and confusion is not a healthy or safe state of being.
We desperately need something in our lives that can cut through the noise of all the opinions, help us to think correctly, and respond appropriately to the things that we are now facing and will face down the road. I love how God speaks of his own truth in Proverbs 1:
To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Prov. 1:2–7)
Let me unpack what God says his truth is and what it is meant to do for us. First, God wants us to know that his truth is practical at a real-life level. It is meant to impact and shape your everyday living (“instruction in wise dealing,” “the one who understands obtains guidance”). He wants you to know that his truth sets a moral framework by which you can evaluate anything (“instruction in . . . righteousness, justice, and equity”). He wants you to know that his truth meets the needs of everyone (“prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth—Let the wise hear and increasing in learning”). And he wants you to know that his word helps you to understand mysteries you would not otherwise understand (“to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles”). This is what a biblical/gospel lens is meant to do for you as you grapple with the issues that press in on you every day.
This book is not a wide-ranging scientific or sociological examination of this current cultural moment, but it will ask us to put on our gospel glasses and take a look at the character and tone of the conversations that are taking place among us in person and, in a more focused way, on the media sites that we participate in daily. My hope is that looking at what we are saying to one another and how we are saying it through the lens of the gospel will not just inform us but will also convict and transform us, so as a gospel community we will stand above the toxicity that seems to be everywhere around us and shine as a city on a hill in a sadly darkened world.