An observation about social media comment sections in light of the Witch Walk furor

Let's be honest, the uproar that ensued after this week's post on the St. Patrick Parish FB page about the Witch Walk brought out the worst in a whole lot of people.  Like many of you, I read a good number of the comments (before they were all restricted somewhere north of the 3k comment mark), and the vast majority of them revealed a level of anger, pettiness, and judgmentalism that we sadly have come to expect from the worst aspects of social media.

My follow-up post on the subject: What the furor over the Witch Walk in Franklin can teach us about Christian cultural engagement was received with much less rancor and positive interaction than the original St. Patrick post was written in response to, thank you to everyone for that.  Much of the difference can be attributed to the nature of the posts themselves, one inflamed passions and the other was trying to calm them, but I've notice a significant difference when comparing the comments that have since occurred about my post on my personal page vs. on 1st Baptist's page.

What's the difference?  For those who know me, at least well enough to be FB friends, the comments have been almost universally polite, even kind.  But on the 1st Baptist's FB page, where those commenting have been much less connected to myself personally (and my comments appear as the institution speaking, not a specific person), the comments have been significantly less gracious, with several veering off into being argumentative, even mean.  This same phenomenon held true when I posted the link to my blog post on someone else's thread, with those responding not being my own FB friends, but friends of that person instead, the end result was less civility, less grace.

{FYI, I've noticed this for years, as a person who maintains a blog, I share posts in relevant threads online from time-to-time, the reception of them there is almost always worse than when sharing the same content on my own feed only.  The level of misunderstanding increases, especially when it comes to people assuming that I have horrible motives behind my words.}

It is as if (and this is no novel observation), that lack of human relationship between people, even one as tenuous as a FB friendship can be, acts as a permission to be the worst jerky versions of ourselves.

As a Christian, this says something to me about fallen human nature, it echoes the lesson of William Goldin's Lord of the Flies that, "the beast is us," and it only takes the addition of a little bit of anonymity to unleash it.  It is a reminder of our universal need for a Redeemer.

When it is Christians, or at least those claiming to be Christians, who are using anonymity to behave in this reprehensible manner, it tells me something deeply sad about the health of the Church in America today.

But it also reminds me of something I've always known, something that buoys my optimism about the future: Relationships matter.  No matter how much of our daily lives gets sucked into our phones, social media apps, and anonymous interactions online, we crave real genuine face-to-face contact with people who know us and care about us.  We can't help it, our Creator made us as relational beings.  For this reason, I'm not putting stock in the future of online churches.  You can't get a warm handshake, even a hug, see someone else's smile, hear their laugh, when you're interaction is through a screen.  If your church, like my church, actually welcomes new people with kindness and genuine acceptance, you have something that people in this world need, and something that our society is leaving them more and more desperate for.

Long story short, we shouldn't be surprised that after the St. Patrick Parish's Witch Walk post went viral, and the majority of those commenting had no idea where Franklin is, what St. Patrick Parish is like (ie. that they run a food pantry that helps people in our community every month), or even the name of its priest, that the commentary became meaner, darker, and uglier by the minute.

Do yourself a favor, spend less time in front of a screen interacting with people you don't really know, and more time in the same room as people who know you, can grow to like you, and by the grace of God love you too.