I know that I am culpable for my Twitter feed. The specifics of all the social media algorithms may remain opaque, but the principle is readily known: the more you click, the more you get. And I certainly got. For every doofus Twitter comment I clicked, I got ten more comments in my feed. My eyes were reaping the seeds I had sown with my thumbs. Forgive me, Lord.

I might have to walk this decision back, but for now, I’m leaving Twitter.
And Facebook.
And Instagram.

The latter two accounts were killed more as collateral damage than being directly engaged as enemy combatants.

I suppose it’s probably more accurate to say I’m simply inducing a coma for my social media accounts than it is to say that I’m leaving them or even killing them—but death sounds more dramatic, and dramatic seems to get more attention, so let’s just say I killed them.

I’ll tell you a few of the reasons why I’m quitting Twitter, even though I won’t presume that one guy’s reasons for abandoning Twitter have any interest to you.

Basically, I joined and remained on Twitter for only a handful of reasons. I liked seeing what my friends from around the world were up to, most of whom are fellow pastors. And I liked seeing what my Christian heroes were up to—again, mostly pastors and authors. I also liked having a vague sense of what was going on more broadly in Christianity. Finally, I supposed that being on Twitter helped me share my books and articles. All of these—the friends, the heroes, the news-worthy events, the writing—were beneficial to me, even sources of joy.

But I started to realize that the underbelly of “Christian Pastor Twitter”—you know, all the snark, all the trolling, all the assuming-the-worst, all the myopic nitpicking—might not be the underbelly. The worst part of Twitter might actually be the whole pig—the head, the body, the arms, the legs, the snout, the curly tail, and not just the underbelly. The exception had become the rule. In fairness, Twitter has probably been this way for a good while, but my experience with Twitter had, at least until recently, remained primarily positive.

But then in the middle of March came a string of, what I can only call, insanity.

There was that lousy review of the book Gentle and Lowly. If you missed this, you are better for it. A book reviewer managed to misread an excellent book written by a hero of mine, and the review got people worked up, including me.

Then there was the shooting at the massage parlors in Atlanta, which seemed to cause several social commentators to offer bizarre and irresponsible hot takes. For example, within days of the shootings, some suggested that Christian teaching about sex caused the shooting because the shooter was a member of a church. An article in the New York Times spun it this way. One of my former seminary professors even took the opportunity to slander a thoughtful, biblical organization, saying that the organization had “radicalized” the shooter. That accusation is absurd—and again, slanderous. I know I shouldn’t care as much as I do, but I write for the organization that he slandered, and that organization has blessed me and our church in a thousand tangible ways. It seems wildly reckless to connect with a thick, straight line the worst version of Christian teaching about sex—teaching that would be better labeled as un-Christian teaching—and say that it is because of Christian teaching that women are dead. This connection, at best, is a thin correlation and certainly not causation.

That same week another hero of mine, Collin Hansen, tweeted about what a rough week it had been on social media and included a link to the new book he cowrote about hope. I’m so glad he wrote the book. What person couldn’t use more hope in our anxious age? But when I clicked to see the comments underneath Hansen’s tweet—it seemed to me—people salivated at the opportunity to tear him down. It was like Hansen and The Gospel Coalition, where he works, are the source of all the world’s problems. One person likened Hansen to an arsonist who feigns confusion of a burning house. In other words, you caused the terrible week on social media, so don’t be so perplexed.

Read More