Many have been discussing the new BH issue. The first article has the aforementioned title; the second article deals with AAPC, FV, NPP, etc…
My thought on both is whether the internet has to do with both of them. Now, I appreciate the blessing the internet has given us. My family in CA is able to see pictures of my daughter despite us being in VA. However, 50 years ago I would probably not have heard anything from a conference like AAPC. Men wouldn’t have been able to ‘sound the alarm’ on the internet; I would never have been able to spread my own thoughts or commented on the thoughts of others. It probably would have been discussed via papers and meetings, but never have become such a hubbub with church splits, heresy calls, and common laypeople becoming so vitrolic and divisive.
What do y’all think?
I think the problem is not with the medium, but with the people who are abusing it. Looking at the internet objectively, we see it is simply another means of humans communicating with each other, with a few key benefits like speed, publicity, searchability, and things like this. Now, the question is, is this speed and publicity working against us sometimes, perhaps encouraging people to say things rashly, and with the memory of the internet not forgiving them very well for something they would prefer to take back?
But I think this is just revealing our immaturity with the new medium–there is nothing inherently wrong with speed of communication, actually being quite a useful thing. It’s our own lack of restraint of the tongue, and inability to dwell on matters deeply, from multiple perspectives, that gets us sticking our feet in our mouths, and perhaps perpetuating problems that would be solved sensibly given more deliberation.
Another aspect of this is whether the global nature of the internet spreads things beyond their proper confines. Things that ought to be kept local are suddenly worldwide issues. But I think the global aspect of issues is a great new perspective we now have on issues, and we are now learning more than ever how to live as a global, international church. Back in the day it would have been harder for me in WA to hear about problems in a remote church down in LA, but now I’m much more informed about what’s happening with the church globally. Of course, there’s not a whole lot I can do about the whole AAPC thing–I’ll study the issues manifested, and try to glean from wisdom from it all in case something happens in my church locally. But that’s about it.
Anyhoo, the sum of all this is that dumb, misplaced communication is independent of the medium used. What we find here is simply a new variation on the ancient theme of gossip, slander, divisiveness, and people not minding their own business. What people used to be chatting to each other about used to be the shocking sins of the youth minister in the next town; now we are muttering about the shocking theology of four ministers at a conference in another state.
So the proliferation of news and information of what’s happening in other places I view as a good thing. The events at the AAPC shed light on what we should all believe, and how we should all conduct ourselves at conferences, in our local churches, and such. This is all very informative and good–the problem is when people start taking this information and start meddling, with out any reasonable due process, and all this. That’s just dumb.
Also, this particular conference was supposed to be national and such, which is probably why it elicited such widespread comment. The internet helped, but it may very well have been widely discussed a bit dumbly by numerous folks.