Audio only:
In this episode Trent reveals 3 pitfalls of sharing your faith through the Internet.
Gavin Ortlund – Christian Online Discourse: We Must Do Better
Transcription:
Trent:
The internet has allowed Catholics to share their faith with people they never would’ve even met just a few years ago, but online life also attempts us to treat people in ways we would never have when we communicated primarily face-to-face. That’s why in today’s episode we’re going to examine three problems with online Christianity and how to fix them. So let’s jump right in. Number one, exclusively engaging Protestants. This also applies to Protestants who primarily or exclusively criticize Catholicism. But first I want to address Catholics on this point. Back in March, Andrew Voight wrote an article, a gospel coalition called Roman Catholic. Apologetics is surging online intended audience, Protestants. He writes, where Protestant apologetics is more focused on winning the secular world to Christ. Roman Catholic Apologetics often has a different audience in mind. Their separated brethren targeting Protestants is explicitly encouraged. One writer argues We have from baptism a mandate to evangelize and Protestantism is one of the Fields’s most ready for harvesting.
First, Catholics should share their faith of Protestants because we are God’s coworkers. In sharing the gift of salvation in the third century, St. Cyprian said Whoever is separated from the church and is joined to an adulterous is separated from the promises of the church. Nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger. He’s profane, he’s an enemy. He can no longer have God for his father who has not the church for his mother and the second Vatican Council said Christ established his body, which is the church as the universal sacrament to salvation sitting at the right hand of the Father. He’s continually active in the world that he might lead men to the church and through it, join them to himself and that he might make them partakers of his glorious life by nourishing them with his own body and blood.
God never said that mere Christianity is sufficient for salvation. It’s necessary and so I’m grateful for William Lane, Craig and other Protestants who artfully defend it, but God wants us united to Christ and his church. The church that safeguards the doctrines we’re obligated to believe and communicates the sacraments like the Eucharist, the true body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ that we’re obligated to receive. But you can’t receive the Eucharist unless you’re baptized and you can’t be baptized as an adult unless you believe the gospel. Someone who doesn’t even believe in Christ is in much worse spiritual position than someone who has a deficient theology. At the very least, Catholics should not ignore the non-religious just because it may be easier to share our faith with Protestants due to the large amounts of common ground we have with them. Also, properly speaking, Catholics don’t evangelize Protestants because evangelism is the act of sharing the gospel and the glossary of the catechism of the Catholic church defines the gospel as this.
The good news of God’s mercy and love revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Christ Protestants already have the gospel. What Protestants lack is the fullness of union with Christ church and the means of receiving God’s grace through the sacraments. The Second Vatican Council said of Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox, the church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who being baptized are honored with the name of Christian. Though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter In the early 20th century, the great hem mystic theologian, Gugu LaGrange spoke of quote of all Christians of all who have been baptized Catholic, schmo Protestant, and in 1896, Pope Leo the 13th said, the ardent charity which renders us solicit us of our separated brethren in no wise permits us to cease our efforts to bring back to the embrace of the good shepherd.
Those who manifold error causes to stand aloof from the one fold of Christ day after day, we delore more deeply the unhappy lot of those who are deprived of the fullness of the Christian faith, and since Catholicism has the fullness of the faith, Protestants who obsess over Catholicism should take a cue from their own brethren and reach out to those who have succumbed to godless secularism. Instead, Catholics should be just as concerned if not more concerned about reaching those who are not Christian at all. In fact, one of the best ways that Catholics share their faith with Protestants is to be a model of evangelism to non-Christians. For example, I’ve known Protestants who became interested in Catholicism after they learned that the best natural law defenses of human life and sexuality tend to come from Catholic philosophers. I’ve also met many Protestants who encountered my arguments for Catholicism after they saw my arguments against atheism or abortion.
Consider this quote from CS Lewis. What we want is not more little books about Christianity but more little books by Christians on other subjects with their Christianity latent. You can see this most easily if you look at it the other way round. Our faith is not very likely to be shaken by any book on Hinduism, but if whenever we read an elementary book on geology, botany politics or astronomy, we found that its implications were Hindu that would shake us. Now switch out Christian for Protestant and Hindu for Catholic and you’ll see what I mean. Imagine the last line read. If whenever we read an elementary book on biblical studies, moral apologetics answering atheism or Christian philosophy, we found that its implications were Catholic that would shake us. So if Catholics want to help Protestants become Catholic, then Catholics should strive to be the best at what Protestants are typically known for, such as having a deep knowledge of scripture or a desire to defend the fundamentals of Christianity like the deity of Christ or the existence of God.
That’s what we aim to do here at the Council of Trent, and if you support that, please subscribe to our channel and support us for just a few dollars a month@trenthornpodcast.com. Unfortunately, I’ve seen some online Catholics not only focus entirely on engaging Protestants but resort to an annoying tactic while doing this, which brings me to number two, rage baiting while click. Baiting promises something alluring to get people to click, and then it pulls a bait and switch rage baiting is the opposite. It encourages people to engage or click by presenting something so outrageous or anger inducing that the person views the material in order to vent their anger at it. This happens with online Catholics when they post content that is designed to enrage Protestants or at the very least it doesn’t consider how a Protestant might receive that message. Consider this post. Every single smart Protestant becomes Catholic eventually, no exceptions.
You can tell this approach is bad by just following the golden rule, treating others how you’d want to be treated. Would a Catholic be moved towards Protestantism by someone simply telling him every smart Catholic becomes Protestant without exception? Or would a Christian say, you know what? Maybe atheists have a point because I saw a meme that said every smart Christian leaves their faith without exception, or would they just roll their eyes at an indirect insult to their intelligence? Putting down people who disagree with us isn’t a great way to reach them. Colossians four or five through six says, conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer every one. Obviously, many non-Catholics also engage in rage bait against Catholicism, which leads me to ask this question, what is more likely to attract a Catholic to leave Catholicism, a Protestant who uses sloppy research and anger inducing posts, or a Protestant who uses rigorous research and strives to speak with charity?
If the latter approach is more effective at helping Catholics become Protestant, wouldn’t that same approach also be more effective at helping Protestants become Catholic and thus show why rage bait isn’t a good idea, but along with inducing rage by putting down Protestants, some Catholics induce rage by trying to be as over the top as they can with their Catholicism in order to make Protestants cope and seethe. One way this happens is by playfully talking about Mary and the saints in a way that borders on idolatry. Now, I get that sometimes Catholics have been too conciliatory towards Protestantism and have acted like we have to apologize for our Catholic heritage or piety, but we also have to remember St. Paul’s principle of milk before meat. He writes in one Corinthians three verses one through three, but I brethren could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh as babes in Christ, I fed you with milk.
Not solid food for you are not ready for it, and even yet you are not ready for you are still of the flesh. This means you shouldn’t give someone spiritual food. He’s not ready to digest. For example, you wouldn’t start an evangelical who can barely wrap his head around Mary being the mother of God with St. Louis de Montfort’s true devotion to Mary without a proper grounding In Catholic theology, a brand new convert may be scandalized by its effusive praise of Mary, although Montfort is clear regarding Mary that quote with the whole church, I acknowledge that Mary being a mere creature fashioned by the hands of God is compared to his infinite majesty less than an Adam or rather is simply nothing. Since he alone can say, I am he who is consequently this great Lord who is ever independent and self-sufficient, never had and does not now have any absolute need of the blessed virgin for the accomplishment of his will and the manifestation of his glory to do all things he has only to will them.
The point is that traditions and practices that can seem shocking to outsiders should be presented to them gently and to didactically, not abrasively, and with an intent to simply shock or own the person. And we also shouldn’t act like certain optional practices like saying a daily rosary or attending daily mass are mandatory parts of the faith, but ultimately I think the obnoxious stuff Catholics do online is similar to the obnoxious stuff other people do online because social media causes us to act in inhuman ways towards each other. It’s built into the algorithm and it takes a lot to break away from this. That’s why I quit almost all of my social media and rarely post on X anymore. But if you do post, here is the third and final problematic thing I see Catholics do. Number three, abusing anonymity. A lot of online interactions between Catholics and non-Catholics is between anonymous and semi-anonymous accounts.
Sometimes a person may use their real picture but not their real name. In other cases, they use a fake name and a fake or nondescript picture like Crusading Knight, female Saint Anime, avatar and frog anonymity can be used well in some cases. For example, you might be a teenager from an anti-Catholic home trying to learn about Catholicism and you don’t want to lose your internet privileges, so you have an anonymous account to ask questions or you may be a Muslim doing the same thing in an anti-Christian country that will do a lot worse than ground you or you may be a mature Christian who wants to ask about an intimate personal problem and you want to be anonymous for a genuine sake of privacy, but in many cases anonymous accounts are abused, so I personally consider them too tempting for Christians to use. We create an avatar that does things we would never do in real life or even an entire fake persona.
I remember a few years ago an account called totally Tegan claimed to be an atheist interested in Catholicism. She got a lot of engagement from Catholics until was discovered she was a fake account using stolen photos. Another recent case is Patriarch Hannah who claimed to be a trad wife raising 14 kids, but turned out to be a fraud and it’s not just Catholics. Josh BI was a Protestant pastor and president of the G three conference, a large Calvinist gathering where I previously debated James White, but according to his statement issued this week from his church’s website, bi quote, operated at least four anonymous social media accounts, two anonymous email addresses and two substack platforms. These accounts were used to publicly and anonymously slander numerous Christian leaders including pastors, some of whom have spoken at G three conferences, several PNBC, elders and others. The statement goes on to say his church accepted Josh B’s resignation as president of G three.
The Elders of Pray Mills Baptist Church have asked Josh to take an indefinite leave of absence. Now, these are rare cases, but they all start with a temptation to be whoever we want to be online because nobody knows it’s us. When we have an anonymous profile, for example, I’ve seen anonymous accounts spout all kinds of nonsense because what they say doesn’t have to make sense. It just has to bring in clicks with the algorithm to reward them, and if you come to despise how your avatar is perceived, you can always digitally unlive your avatar and start over with a new profile, but that’s not how life works. Instead, as our Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 12, verses 36 through 37, I tell you on the day of judgment, men will render account for every careless word they utter for. By your words, you’ll be justified and by your words you will be condemned.
And in Luke 12 verses one through three, the Lord says, beware of the Levin of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden, that will not be known. Whatever you have said in the dark, I’d add posted online, anonymously shall be heard in the light and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. Now, at this point I’ll hear people say, but if people knew I was Catholic, I’d get fired from my job to justify having an anonymous account first. If that’s true, then you have the basis for a solid discrimination lawsuit. Second, and more importantly, it sounds like you’re saying you think you should deny your Catholic so you can retain worldly goods like a job, but Christ said, whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my father who is in heaven.
Third, I highly doubt you’re worried you will get fired just for being Catholic. You’re probably worried that you’ll get fired because of your abusive, bigoted or obscene behavior that you would never do in front of your employers that has nothing to do with your Catholic faith. Fourth, even if you had a justifiable reason for people to not know you are Catholic or you have strong views on say, abortion, homosexuality, you don’t have an obligation to be on social media. The choice isn’t an anonymous or a public account. You could also just live a healthier offline life if you can’t have a public social media profile. One of the dangers of social media is that we think that if we have a hot take, then we need to broadcast that to the entire world because we crave the dopamine. Our brain releases when people like our posts, but that’s what friends and family are for traditionally.
They are the people we can share our thoughts with and who if we have a bad take, can graciously correct us without our error becoming something that lives on the internet forever. Instead, what ends up happening is that online anonymous accounts replace these healthy relationships and then spiral into trying to say the most extreme thing possible that one’s anonymous peers cheerlead. Even though such an act isn’t brave at all, that’s why we have no reason to take the testimony of anonymous accounts seriously. Of course, being a public profile isn’t a guarantee. You’ll be a virtuous person. There are many public accounts that traffic and garbage, but maybe that’s a reason we all should be backing away from social media or if we do use social media to share our faith, we treat it like ministering in a radioactive wasteland. Kevin Orland also has a good video on this subject, and I really like what he says here.
CLIP:
The algorithms are very powerful in shaping how we talk and they want our attention and they’ll keep pulling us back, and I think sometimes we can be naive about this just the way social media works. Watch a movie like The Social Dilemma terrifying, but it’s good to be terrified and realize this. If you were walking through a jungle at night and there’s jaguars all around you, our Jaguars nocturnal, change the predator If you want, you’re walking through, you’re going to be mindful, you’re going to be looking around hoping you don’t get eaten, and you’re going to be vigilant to try to protect yourself. That’s how we should feel about our use of social media. We should be extremely mindful of the pitfalls
Trent:
With that perspective. Social media is not a place we go for frivolity. It’s a place where we go to help others and then recharge when we are offline. The internet should not be a substitute for genuine human encounters, but it also isn’t something we have to completely avoid either. I’ll leave you with an excerpt from the Vatican’s 2023 document towards full presence, a pastoral reflection on engagement with social media whose first few sentences directly, Pope Francis, the use of the social web is complimentary to an encounter in the flesh that comes alive through the body, heart, eyes, gaze, and breath of the other. If the net is used as an extension or expectation of such an encounter, then the network concept is not betrayed and remains a resource for communion. The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity, a network not of wires, but of people if we remember that. On the other side of the screen, there are no numbers or mere aggregates of individuals, but people who have stories, dreams, expectations, sufferings. There is a name and a face. Thank you all for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day.