Am I just some rage-posting edgeboi? Do I enjoy dodging rotten tomatoes? Does getting yelled at make me feel good inside? No, actually it doesn’t. I won’t pretend that I dislike the exposure… But that’s not why I start these things. Believe it or not, when the online dumpster fires start raging, often I dread checking in to see what kind of mess I need to clean up now. So why do I keep starting these fights then? Why do I post the way that I do? I hope that in the following explanation, even if you don’t agree with me, you will be able to understand my reasons.
My foundational aspiration, of course, is to glorify Jesus Christ. Some of you think, of course, that I have an odd way of going about it, and I understand. But my specific endeavor in my social media engagement is twofold – firstly, to provide a biblically uncompromised commentary on hot button cultural issues; secondly, to do so in such a balanced way as to encourage others to consider things that are outside of their comfort zone. It is my hope that by consistently providing biblically-balanced hot takes I will offend everybody enough to shake them out of their particular echo chambers, while providing enough thoughtful and, hopefully, humble conversation about the issues to encourage thoughtful consideration, rather than simple rejection of what I am discussing.
I try to choose the words that I use carefully. I seek to post things that, first of all, I stand behind and can defend biblically, and secondly, that are worded precisely for the end in mind.
A recent example would be my post about effeminate pastors. I could have simply posted "pastors who will not speak against Andrew Tate are not doing their job." If I posted this, half of my readers – we shall call them the normies – they would read the post, shrug, agree, maybe give it a like, and move on with their lives. The other half of my readers – we shall call them the based bros – they might say that the post was gay, or say “what pastors are actually saying that Andrew Tate is good?” or say “I bet you don’t condemn feminists do you? You just wanna be popular with the soy boys.”
However, if I said "pastors who refuse to call out the sins of women in their churches are effeminate," the based boys would love my post, and the normies would rush to the defense of pastors who do call out womens' sins, while being offended that I used the word effeminate.
But by combining the two statements, my goal is to achieve the following:
To cause people who would generally reject anyone who uses the word “effeminate“ to think a little bit harder before doing so, because it is actually a biblical word with a specific and useful meaning.
To cause people who are comfortable with condemning Andrew Tate, but who are uncomfortable with confronting rebellious wives, to recognize that they can’t have their cake and eat it too.
To cause the based boys who generally don’t listen when people talk about how terrible Andrew Tate is to step back and realize that simply echo-chambering their own views is actually committing the cardinal sin of “effeminacy“ that they so regularly condemn.
Another example would be posting something like “Sarah obeyed her husband, calling him lord. This is a good and godly thing that Christian women must aspire to.”
This will offend a bunch of people who want to talk about how important it is to protect wives from abuse.
And we should protect wives from abuse.
But we should also be able to endorse things that the Bible says boldly and without apology.
This is also why I would post something like “husbands do not have authority over their wives’ conscience.“
This will offend a bunch of people who will say that it’s giving ammunition to the rebellious hags.
And we should tell wives not to be rebellious hags.
But we should also have no problem acknowledging that you don’t have to be male to have your own walk with Jesus Christ.
None of this is to deny that there are people on both ends of the spectrum who will not listen – people who are fools – people who don’t know Jesus – etc. They need rebuked, not coddled. However, rebukes land a lot better once you’ve already acknowledged whatever truth they are hiding behind and using to justify their error. If I say “you need to stop being so disrespectful to women” and they say "but feminism is bad," it is helpful to be able to say “you’re right, feminism is awful, I just said that 32 times last week. Now let’s get back to talking about how your conduct is unacceptable.“ I just stole their shield. They don’t have anything actually true that they can hide behind anymore.
If you want to hear me talk about a broader range of topics than just the current hot topics, I’d recommend my podcast. I’m currently preaching through 1 Peter. But if you’re following me on social media… this is a lot of what you’re gonna get.
Now, you may think that I’m doing a terrible job at what I’m trying to accomplish. I appreciate your prayers and your thoughtful comments. But at least now hopefully you can understand that I’m not simply trying to throw inflammatory things against the wall to see which things set the house on fire.
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