Joe asks Jamie: Is social media bad? This comes from the idea of applying something as ubiquitous as social media to living a godly life.
Jamie: Hey everybody, I'm Jamie Dew.
Joe: And I am Joe Fontenot.
Jamie: And we want to welcome you once again to the Towel and Basin podcast.
Joe: And today I'm asking Jamie, is social media bad?
Jamie: Well, you certainly wouldn't think it's bad by the way that people use it and just wholeheartedly embrace it, but I think questions like that are important to ask because indeed there are some negative things that happen to us, pressures we feel perhaps, or something like that that come to it. But to really assess it biblically, I think the challenge of that is that we actually... of course there are no passages of scriptures, no particular Bible verses, there's no chapter verse or anything like that in the scriptures that address this because of course the biblical writers did not have a frame of reference for anything digital like a computer or a cell phone or a TV or any of those things. So it's difficult. I don't know that we could point to a specific passage that particularly addresses it, but we may be able to draw some themes from some passages that give us a framework to think it through.
Joe: So it's like the Bible's look at social media?
Jamie: Yeah, so for-
Joe: Or how we can understand it.
Jamie: So for example, I would go back to even a passage of scripture like Genesis chapter one where you've got God unfolding creation. You've got the six days of creation, one day of rest, and God speaks to man when it climaxes and culminates in the creation of man that He's going to say is in His image. There are now some particular things He says about human beings that He does not say about any other created thing in the universe that He's made. And I think from these things we might be able to draw out some motifs or some theological themes that really help us to address these types of questions.
And so for example, one particular motif that a lot of scholars will point to in this creation passage is the cultivative mandate. So for example, when God creates man and woman, He puts them in a garden and there in the garden, He tells them to till the ground, to cultivate the ground, to bring stuff forth from that. And so one way that this would apply to this question of technology today, modern technology, is going to be with the fact that you and I are creating things. And this is from a worldview perspective, when I do apologetics and such. This is one of the ways, a touch point, that the Christian faith has with reality that I think makes it particularly appealing and persuasive in that the Christian tradition describes the world as it really is. It makes sense out of things.
So for example, God is Himself a creator and He made us in his image. And one of the things I think's going to be entailed in that is that we're going to create stuff too. So where does our ability to write poetry come from? Or our ability to write songs, or our ability to build buildings, or our ability to do engineering or anything else that we create, like a MacBook computer or cell phone? It comes from the fact that we too are 'little c', creators. We take what's already there and we cultivate what's already there to bring forth stuff. Seems to me that that's part of what God is commanding man to do there in the garden. So that we would get to a place where we've created such things doesn't surprise me at all within the Christian tradition. I think God's commanded us to do that.
Now, we don't just do it though for the sake of bringing stuff into existence, right? Within the Christian tradition, there is a coming forth, it explains where it comes from, and in this case it comes from our 'little c', creative abilities. But it also has an end, right? When we create things, it's always for something. So what's it for? What are we called to create things for?
Joe: For God's glory.
Jamie: Yeah, exactly. So the dominion He places over us in the creation, He also gives a dominion to us over the created order. Why does He give us a dominion? Well, it's because again, we're in his image and our dominion is to be reflective of his dominion, right? So there's a rulership to the universe. He's overall, we're over the creation as a sub entity, so to speak, that we oversee specifically.
And so we do all this to magnify and to glorify our God. Now having said all that, one of the other important motifs that we find in that biblical past is not just to cultivate the ground and bring stuff forth, create stuff now, and to use it to magnify God, god also says, "Have dominion over it." So what that means is for the cows, for the birds, for the plants, for the stuff of the ground, and even the stuff that Adam and Eve are going to cultivate, God does expect us to rule over the things that we create or that we cultivate, or that He's already put there, right? And again, that's to magnify Him. But I think this speaks to us on the stuff that we create in this way. If we create it, we must maintain dominion over it.
And this is where I think-
Joe: So it's like an issue of control.
Jamie: That's right. That's right. So, if I'm going to make something, it seems to me from a Dominion's perspective, I'm to maintain authority over it. And I think we have to look now at this question of social media, of technology and all of these things as to whether or not we're controlling it, or whether or not it's controlling us now.
Joe: And I think that's tricky because so much good can come of social media.
Jamie: Absolutely.
Joe: Yeah. I mean, so there's countless stories and I think we can all find the good, but if I'm hearing you right, you're saying there's, in the question as it started, is social media bad? It's really this issue of control.
Jamie: That's right. So, it's good in the sense that it's a creative thing, right? And so God made us 'little c', creators. We brought forth some stuff and it does have some potential value to us. Think about medical technology, transportation technology, all sorts of things that we can point to from an advantage standpoint of technology. This is why we do it, right? And this was Francis Bacon's vision at the beginning of the scientific revolution. He was frustrated that up to that point, the Western world, or really the whole world, had not made scientific progress.
Think about it. From the time of Jesus to the time of Francis Bacon, if you wanted to travel somewhere, you walked, you got on a donkey or a horse, or you did horse and buggy or a boat and that was it. It from Jesus to Francis Bacon, if you got appendicitis, you died. From Jesus to Francis Bacon, if you want to do illuminate a room, you lit a candle. You look at the technological advances for thousands of years and it's null and void. There's not any.
He's frustrated and He envisions bringing forth technology to serve us. And there's a change of paradigm, which we won't go into right now. There's a change of paradigm about how to do science with him. And from that boom, scientific revolution. You think about it. For thousands of years, horse and buggy, and within a few hundred years after Francis Bacon, we go from that point to putting people on the moon. We go from that point to splitting people's chest open and taking their heart out and putting new hearts in there. That's pretty phenomenal change.
Joe: Yeah, exponential.
Jamie: So you look at the advantages that have come to us through the scientific revolution. It's obviously the case that there's good stuff in there, but the question now for us is, have we advanced it to the point that we're beginning to lose control of it? And I have to admit to you, and I know I'm a curmudgeon, maybe, about social media and technology and things like this, but so be it. I'll wear the label of curmudgeon. I'm worried about this stuff because it seems to me that we are inadvertently, unintentionally, and very naively we losing control of ourselves and our communities in these venues.
Joe: So, we look at technology historically on the really big picture, right, we have all this stuff, everything, industrial revolution. We go from child laborers and all this kind of stuff to work weeks. We create a lot of good things from technology. We are 'little c', creators doing what God says, but then how is it that we get to this point where social media is potentially bad? Because I think even intuitively all know it's bad. What about it-
Jamie: Well it can become bad.
Joe: It can become bad.
Jamie: I don't know that I want to say outright, across the board categorically it's bad because there are good things-
Joe: There are good things.
Jamie: Think about it. There are values, there are ministries, there are movements that are worth our attention and our adherence to, that we can hold up and we can shape and we can tell stories with social media in very unique and very powerful ways, and therefore very good ways. But we can also destroy people in the process with it.
Joe: And I also hear kind of two different levels here, right: you've got the global level of social media, right, the concept of social media. It can be a force for good, right? But then also there's this other side on the personal level, and I think this goes back to your second point earlier when you talked about dominion. How do we keep social media from owning us? Because it is so addictive. And so let me ask you that then: well talk about that.
Jamie: Okay. How do you keep it from having dominion over you?
Joe: Yeah.
Jamie: So I would say a couple things here. One, I think there has to be a very intentional and deliberate decision on our part that we hold ourselves to on a daily basis to put our phones down, to turn away from our computers for a moment. Just think, for example, of how many times that you sit in "conversation" with people and they're staring at their phones. I can't tell you how many meetings I have been in where we're meeting together to hammer through something, but everybody's having their own little private electronic meeting, staring at their phones.
And I think that that's one of the things we do. God made us to be flesh and blood people. If He wanted a purely spiritual realm, I suspect He would not have created us to be embodied. We are incarnational beings and so therefore we have to be deliberately are incarnational. And we're in a moment right now where the pull and the momentum from everything is pulling us more and more and more into screens, and less and less and less into people's actual eyes. We do this with the way we communicate with each other, when we text, we email, we do those things and obviously those things: I get texts and I text, and I get emails and I email back. I try on email at least.
So I know somebody out there and call us immediately hypocritical that we even raise this question because we're doing it via a social media platform. So obviously those things are here to stay, they're not going anywhere in any of our lives. But we can put ourselves on a diet, and every time we have an opportunity to have a real conversation with somebody, pick up the phone, or a walk across the street or walk across the hallway to somebody and actually have a conversation with them. And especially with our families right now. There are hours and hours, days and days, weeks and weeks, months and months, and therefore years and years of our lives that we're missing with our children right now. Because we are glued to a phone and they're glued to a phone. And so one thing I would say is to just be deliberately incarnational with other people as we interact with them.
Joe: I think we should pick this up part two.
Jamie: Okay.
Joe: Let's look at, because this is such a big issue, let's look at kind of the neutral nature of social media. Is it neutral or is it something we have to treat with a kind of a side-eye? And then, I would like to talk more about the parenting side of it. Because that is when kids are in these formative years, if this is not neutral or if there are certain things we need to know about here, and then what do we do if we're already there.
Jamie: Sounds like a lot of fun.
Hey everybody, this is Jamie and Joe again.
Joe: If you like this podcast, would you leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps other people find it.
Jamie: And if you have any questions we'd love to hear about them. Just go to Jamiedew.com/questions and send them in that way, and we'll take a look at the most frequently asked questions and give them a shot.