Enjoy this piece from PARSE regular A.J. Swoboda. It's provocative. – Paul
In 1978, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a prophetic revolutionary who'd experienced firsthand the evils of the Russian gulags and boldly confronted the communism of his motherland, delivered the commencement address at Harvard University. It was titled: "A World Split Apart."
Solzhenitsyn was new to America and from that fresh perspective he railed against Americans who wrongly believed they were entitled to false "freedoms." He suggested that Americans falsely believed they had the freedom to look into everyone else's life. He writes:
…we witness shameless intrusions on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: "everyone is entitled to know everything." But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era: people also have the right not to know, and it is a much more valuable one. The right not to have our divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, and vain talk. A person who leads a meaningful life does not need the excessive burdening flow of information.
The things that we call freedom are often nothing more than oppression with better packaging.
Solzhenitsyn—fresh from totalitarian communism—used the Harvard moment to take a hard stance against oppression masked as personal "freedom." What he was saying was that the things that we call freedom are often nothing more than oppression with better packaging.
His address shocked many, implying as it did that the land of the free, might actually be a land of great oppression.
Everything about everyone
The easiest way to oppress someone is to get them to believe they're truly free. Once they think they're free, you can do all sorts of oppressing under the guise of "freedom."
But those who think they are most free are often the most trapped.
We think we have the right to know everything about everyone.
Solzhenitsyn brings up something incredibly practical for us today. We think we have the right to know everything about everyone. One can, with a click or swipe, find all kinds of anything on the web about most public (and even private) figures—including our least favorite politicians, pastors, and celebrities. We think we have the right to know what we want about everyone. Particularly in the church.
I'd really like to say that this culture is different among Christians. But it's not. Perhaps it's worse. Now, more than ever, we hear a cacophony of voices say whatever we want them to about this week's controversial leader or issue in the church. It's produced a cottage industry of gossip among Christians online.
Modern online Christianity is beginning to resemble TMZ more than it is resembles Christianity. Blogging about our least favorite Christian celebrities is tantamount to re-enacting exactly what's been going on in the Korean peninsula for decades: We're creating a ceaseless conflict between two factions with no end in sight.
We just are using words rather than bombs. TMZ is just another way of creating a DMZ. Likewise, TMZ is the American DMZ. It is unreconciliation at a click, a watch, a view.
Supported by viewers like you
But friends, TMZ exists because we watch it. Porn exists because we buy it. Chocolate made by the hands of slave children in the Ivory Coast is available because we want it, want it cheap, and will pay for it. Clicking is supporting. So if we want the online-gossip-TMZ-style-Christianity to end, we have to stop clicking.
If Christians spent their time clicking on stories about peace-making, reconciliation, and grace, the good news of Jesus, then …
Or rather, we have to click with integrity. If Christians spent their time clicking on stories about peace-making, reconciliation, and grace, the good news of Jesus, then marketers and bloggers would pick it up and start going in that direction. But because we click on the story about Justin Bieber's latest problem on tour, advertisers will keep feeding the beast.
Should certain pastors be held to account for their sin, arrogance, etc? Yes! Without question. And, truth of the matter is, you are free to write what you want about who you want. But is blogging about someone else's sin really a healthy or healing means of dealing with it?
If you know the person, call them on the phone. If you don't know the person, pray for them.
Personally, I'm done commenting on posts that are based on gossip. I'm done reading folks who base their blogging ministry on gossip. I have to be done.
I choose to give up that freedom.
A.J. Swoboda, Ph.D, is a pastor, author, and professor in Portland, Oregon.
