Posting Peace

Why Social Media Divides Us and What We Can Do About It

Douglas S. Bursch

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780830847815
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Why is everyone so angry online? The internet seems to have brought the world together only so we can tear each other apart. Social media platforms have become toxic and polarizing environments. Many of us are overwhelmed and disillusioned by endless online conflict and negativity. How did we get here, and what can we do about it?The internet changes not only how we communicate but also what we communicate. Pastor and former radio host Douglas Bursch provides a spiritual examination of why social media divides people and how Christians can address polarization through a ministry of peacemaking. Digital media dehumanizes and disembodies us, dulling our ability to know when to speak and when to remain silent. But healthy online communication is possible through a constructive posture of reconciliation. Bursch offers practical examples of how to proactively manage social media and handle online conflict in redemptive ways.Together we can change the discourse of online Christian communication. Discover how we can use social media in a positive, Christ-like manner.

1

Angry Online

I anxiously pause and read, then pause and read again, carefully trying to parse the verbiage, analyze the tone, determine the intent, decipher the meaning, and find a way forward through this ever-expanding social media battlefield. I grow tired of this recurring, sinking, alienating feeling, my thumbs hovering over the phone, my eyes scanning and rescanning the inflamed words on the screen. Although I’m not looking for a fight, I face the familiar prospect that my next post, tweet, response, or lack of response will make someone angry.

Why are we so angry online? Why are we so divided? I can imagine the apostle Paul tweeting, “If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other” (Gal 5:15). I can also imagine his words being disregarded or angerly refuted by most everyone. Why are we behaving in such a ridiculous manner with even the most mundane observations devolving into toxic absurdities? I can tweet the banal observation “I ate too many tacos,” and five responses later someone angrily accuses me of being a “baby killer.” If you don’t see a connection between baby killing and taco consumption, you’re correct. Unless you’re interacting with these words and ideas on the internet. On the internet, everything’s connected. This is the strange reality of our age; every idea becomes entangled through the emotionally chaotic, incessantly divisive world of social media. Our online existence is turning us into angry, dehumanizing, polarizing people.

Our response to a worldwide pandemic poignantly exemplified and exaggerated the most troubling aspects of our social media communication. While the world engaged in social distancing and at-home sheltering to stop the deadly spread of the coronavirus, the most divisive aspects of social media communication went viral. Angry partisan divisiveness and wild unfounded conspiracy theories spread rapidly through social media platforms. The World Health Organization (WHO) referred to this worldwide, massive spread of misinformation as an “Infodemic” where an overabundance of misinformation made “trustworthy sources” and “reliable guidance” hard to find when people most needed accurate information.1 In the early days of the spread of the coronavirus and the spread of related misinformation, the internet’s largest social media networks released an unprecedented joint statement declaring their intent to closely work together to combat “fraud and misinformation” and to elevate “authoritative content.”2 Although their statement dealt with misinformation, they could not address the general attitudes of anger and fear that infused into so many social media discussions.

One social media analytics tracking company found that disgust and fear were the most prominent emotions expressed by social media users during the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.3 This disgust and fear exaggerated already volatile online environments as physically isolated people facing a collective traumatic experience increased their social media engagement on platforms that trended toward conflict in even the most peaceful of times. For many of us the dilemma was devastating. On one hand, we needed and craved community as the virus cut us off from many everyday human interactions. On the other hand, the online world we used to supplement our loss of in-person community became increasingly toxic, dehumanizing, and harmful to our emotional health.

United to Divide and Devour

Whether confronting a pandemic or tackling the realities of everyday existence, the internet is a wonderfully powerful, dangerous tool. Through online communication individuals unite and divide, relationships develop and implode, communities form and shatter. The internet increases our ability to connect with and to harm more people personally than ever. For every person we bless, others we offend. Although the internet brings us together, the online world also dehumanizes, detaches, divides, segments, and polarizes people. We’re becoming angry, mean, and cliquish. People roam the online world looking for individuals they can fight or devour. Daily, we watch seemingly non-controversial posts or tweets spark contentious, bitter online battles. Earnest attempts to civilly address injustices quickly disintegrate into rancorous partisan extremism. The anger and toxicity feel so palpable, many of us dread expressing any possibly controversial opinions, fearing others will conscript us into ideological battles we’re not trying to fight. The polarization of social media communication increases in many individuals a profound sense of anxiety, alienation, and frustration. The internet connects more humans and more people groups than any technology in history. Yet, as we come together, we tear each other apart.

We sense and even lament the foreboding growing tensions and divisions rising up in our social media age, yet many of us are fatalistic when contemplating solutions. While some people pessimistically accept the hostility of social media as an inevitable reality of the medium, I want to confront that notion. I might be foolish in my attempt, but I want to challenge the spirit of our age to seriously call into question the fundamental ways we interact with each other online. I’m tired of the fighting. I’m tired of being afraid of the fighting. I no longer desire to engage in fruitless heated discussions and meaningless contentious debates that don’t have a redemptive or transformative purpose. I want my best energy directed toward Christ-centered, truth-advancing, life-affirming, grace-filled, reconciling communication. I want to be a Christ-motivated peacemaker.

I believe many of us hunger for a better way to respond to this antagonistic, divisive, polarizing age. We yearn to live as true agents of peace and reconciliation in this troubled world. We recognize the internet is a powerful tool with the profound potential to cause great harm, but also to produce great good. However, we sometimes grow disillusioned and overwhelmed by the toxic social media environment surrounding us. Sometimes we just grow annoyed!

Although the online world is no longer a new phenomenon, we must remember that our generation is still pioneering social media communication, creating a foundational online culture that will impact future generations. The fundamental principles of social media communication are not set in stone. Rather, we form those principles in our daily interactions. We must realize that as our daily interactions form the medium of social media, the medium also forms us. The social media platforms we create are not just connecting us—they’re changing us. They’re changing how we view reality, understand relationships, process conflicts, and abide with each other.

The internet is not a neutral information-gathering and sharing tool. Social media does far more than simply provide an environment where individuals can connect to share ideas. Instead, the online world changes the way we view humanity. Social media transforms what we expect from each other and what we’re willing to do to maintain, foster, and build healthy, diverse, meaningful, long-term relationships. The internet influences how I abide with you and how you abide with me. Even though we desire meaningful human connections, social media platforms are structured to separate us from some of the most basic interactions we need to establish strong relationships. The online medium fosters and exaggerates non-reconciling behavior. Simply put, social media normalizes and codifies bad behavior.

The internet is an amazing technological innovation. Sadly, we’re harming ourselves with our own creation. Social media turns communication into destructive confrontation. Even worse, we seem to have lost our ability to speak the truth in love. The work of peacemaking has been supplanted by an endless war of words. Many are aware of the growing problem, but we just don’t know how to fix it.

Contending for a Better Witness

This book attempts to confront the social media-driven anger and polarization crippling our society. Christians must come out of this toxic, divisive social media chaos into a better way of online communicating. We must refuse to participate in the devouring spirit of our age, even as we fulfill our calling to fight against injustices. This isn’t a book that instructs Christians to yield their rightful engagement within culture. Instead, I’m advocating for believers to transform culture through expressing a better witness in this frequently bitter world.

Peacemakers position their communication on the firm foundation of the transformative gospel of Jesus Christ. They advocate for social media communication that takes seriously the biblical mandate to participate in the ministry of reconciliation. Practically, peacemakers are less jerky, less annoying, less angry, and less eager to turn taco tweets into inflammatory abortion debates. Whether dealing with mundane daily conflicts or confronting the profound impacts of a pandemic, peacemakers relentlessly contend for Christ-centered reconciliation.

Throughout my adult life I’ve had a profound interest in the internet’s societal impact. In my early twenties, I worked for an internet start-up that developed technologies to increase online communication and connectivity. As a pastor, I’ve seen the power of the internet to foster relationships and fuel divisiveness. Recently, my interest in online technologies became the primary focus of my doctoral work. I’ve dedicated much of my life to the ministry of reconciliation, directing my passion and studies toward how to best use social media to promote peacemaking. However, to truly understand my passion for reconciliation, let me take you back to an earlier time in my life when I tried to reconcile the world through hosting my own daily talk show on a far-right Christian radio station.

Angry Far-Right Christian Radio

Along with being a pastor, God granted me the honor of being a “radio personality.” I use the words “radio personality” to evoke the fully ambiguous nature of the role I held and the relentless struggle I confronted trying to honor God while maintaining my identity. I started my radio personality journey in a rather contentious environment. For five years I hosted a talk show Monday through Friday from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. on a very conservative Christian radio station. I began my radio career believing I could produce a show that united conservative, progressive, and moderate Christians around a better way of coexisting. I thought I could facilitate an environment where we could learn to disagree without being jerks about it. I thought there were many Christians hungry for a better form of communication that was not rooted in partisan bickering and bitter political divisiveness. I believed my show would grow in popularity and influence, eventually reaching national syndication, as I assumed people were hungry for a less contentious dialogue. When I finally resigned from my position, I had produced and broadcast over 1,200 shows and discovered that I was wrong! Completely wrong!

There was not a growing movement of people hungry for reconciling content or a growing radio audience to propel me into syndication. Although I was able to fulfill the requirements of my job by maintaining an audience, I found my moderate, reconciling voice faced constant rebuke, scorn, or indifference from my employer and the station’s core listening audience. My dream of reconciling the world through radio was met with the reality of ingrained political divisiveness. I felt I had something to offer the world that the world wanted. I was wrong. With this perspective and through the leading of the Holy Spirit, I brushed the dust off my feet and headed in another direction. Those five years were a gift from God, but they hurt me. I still think about the many ways I was wounded by the devouring spirit of Christians who tore into me weekly.

The first few weeks I was on the air were memorable because I was relatively new to talk radio and extremely inexperienced. Trying my best to honor God and my employer, I hosted the daily show with a genuine conviction and passionate work ethic. Even so, I often struggled to know whether or not I was achieving my objectives. My supervisors usually went home before I finished my two-hour show. When I left the studio, most of the offices were empty. My walk, through the office corridor to the elevator and my car in the parking garage, was lonely. The hour commute home was even lonelier.

To make matters worse, my talk show had a very different focus from the conservative political talk show host I replaced. They had fired my predecessor and were simulcasting a show from the Portland area until they decided to once again fill the Seattle host position. People waiting for the Seattle position to open up expected something more far right and politically partisan than what they got in me. Consequently, early on I received very pointed negative emails and phone messages requesting my removal from the station. I could almost always spot a critical email by the formality of the greeting. Whenever individuals started their communication with “Dear Mr. Bursch” or “Dear Pastor Bursch,” what followed was almost never cordial. Polite greetings were the prerequisite for impolite comments about the integrity of my faith or the worthiness of my labor as a radio host and pastor.

One particularly negative interaction sticks with me to this day. A woman with some sort of Irish or Scottish accent (excuse my limited linguistic expertise) called me anonymously on several occasions to complain about my hosting prowess. She would usually call after the show and leave long messages about what was wrong with me as a host and as a person. She would critique my personality (“He thinks he’s funny, but he’s not”), my politics (“He has a lot to say about nothing”), and my music (“ . . . and that terrible blaring intro”). Her oddest critique was her frequent mention of meeting with other people to talk about what a bad job I was doing. She would say, “A bunch of us have been talking to each other about this Doug Bursch fella. We’ve had about enough of it.” This was the part of her rebuke that captured my imagination. I imagined some sort of Irish and/or Scottish Christian entertainment mafia gathering together weekly to determine how to respond to this “Doug Bursch fella.” I realized I was not only ruining someone’s favorite show, but I was also profoundly impacting the gaiety of a local Gaelic community. Her discipline to regularly inform me of her displeasure went beyond the outcomes I had imagined for my radio career. In fact, much of the general meanness I received went beyond my expectations.

To be clear, my show was not an extremist expression. Or at least I didn’t believe it was extremist. I just decided to present a show that welcomed Christians who were Democrats or Republicans and to mention regularly that God is neither. In fact, I of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• 1 Angry Online
• 2 Internet-Formed Identity
• 3 Detached Individualism
• 4 Never Fully Present
• 5 Arguing, Partisan, Segmented People
• 6 A Reconciling Current
• 7 An Online Savior
• 8 A Peacemaking Plan
• 9 Trolling for Jesus
• 10 When Justice Demands Conflict
• 11 The Power of One Peacemaker
• 12 Make Room for the Lord
• Acknowledgments
• The Seven-Day #PostingPeace Challenge
• Notes
• Praise for Posting Peace
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright