Social Media has become the Law (eCrozier #295)

On April 1, 2016, in culture, Law, media, Social Media, by bishopbenhase

This week on NPR’s Fresh Air there was an insightful commentary by music critic Sarah Hepola. In the piece (“When You Become the Person You Hate On the Internet”), she addressed social media, which gives us all a chance to expose the worst of ourselves to the rest of the world. One day, she heard the hit 90s song, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” which she then described in a Facebook post “as the worst song of all time.” The song is about an estranged couple who reconcile after watching the Audrey Hepburn film by that same name. Her post incited some of her friends to pile on, asserting that they also hated the song. She wrote that she got great satisfaction for having created such “a delightful little bonfire of disdain.” She, however, forgot that among her Facebook “friends” was one who just happened to be in the band that had recorded the hit song.  

She thought of removing the post, but figured that would draw more attention. She just hoped this guy never checked Facebook. But he did. She didn’t quote his response to her post. She only described it as implying that she wasn’t “a very nice person.” This sent her into existential anguish. As a writer, she’d been on the receiving end of people cruelly critiquing her work. Now she knew what that was like. She’d become the type of person she herself hated. But she insisted: “I am a nice person, although I sometimes do not-nice things.” We all engage in such self-assessments that attempt to pronounce cheap self-absolution. How do we differentiate between being a nice person who sometimes does not-nice things and being a not-nice person who sometimes does nice things? Does a nice person do nice things 51% of the time? 75% of the time? 99% of the time? Where’s the cut off line for appraising yourself as a nice person? You see the problem here.

Ms. Hepola isn’t the first person to struggle with such things. St. Paul wrestled with the same internal opponent. In Romans 7, he declares: “I don’t understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Ms. Hepola, I think, would agree with Blessed Paul. Later, St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, wrote in his Confessions about a time in his youth when he nihilistically destroyed fruit from a pear tree. That made him ask himself why he also did the very thing he hated. St. Paul wrote that the Jewish Law, while being good, served to expose our sinfulness before God. In our post-Christian culture such an insight into God’s Law may not be possible for many people anymore. They’re simply unaware of it just as they’re unaware of how Jesus dealt mercifully and graciously with our sin on the cross.

Social Media now serves a similar purpose for us as the Jewish Law did for St. Paul: it exposes the less than flattering truth about ourselves. Many people, however, are left to a lonely, internal struggle all the while hoping others we’ll see them as “nice people who sometimes do not-nice things.” For what else can they hope in a culture that was once based on honor and is now based on shame? They’re trapped in the endless loop of self-shaming and then cheap, attempted self-absolution (“Well, I’m not as bad as others”). This is where our personal, relational evangelism matters. We all know someone stuck in this endless loop. We’ve been in it ourselves. But we must be truthful: The Gospel isn’t about us becoming nice people. It’s about Jesus loving and redeeming us anyway.
+Scott

 
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The Moral Bankruptcy of Violence (eCrozier #245)

On January 9, 2015, in evil, Facts, fear, Grief, Justice, media, morality, news, politics, by bishopbenhase

As we all heard the news of the mass shootings at the Parisian satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, it was natural for us to be horrified by such violence, which is so often fueled by perceived political or religious anger and grievance. This news from Paris comes at the same time as the lone surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings begins to have his day in court. In the midst of such violent news, we may lose our perspective, and thus the big picture and the larger trajectory humankind appears to be on, at least based on the real data we have. More on that in a moment.

Mass murder, such as we just witnessed in Paris this week, has almost always been born out of people’s twisted response to their anger and grievance (at least in their own minds) over some great wrong being done to them or to their “tribe” or to their “people.” Timothy McVeigh was motivated by such anger and grievance when he set off a deadly bomb in Oklahoma City in 1995. In the same state 74 years earlier, hundreds of white citizens in Tulsa systematically murdered as many as 300 black residents in a part of town known as the “Black Wall Street,” which at the time was the wealthiest African-American community in the United States. In Wilmington, North Carolina there was the so-called Massacre of 1898, which was actually a coup d’etat of the elected government. No one knows the full extent of the massacre since many of the bodies of the African-Americans killed were dumped in the Cape Fear River and never recovered.

In each of these instances, as we will probably discover with the one this week in Paris, the deranged actors all justified their murderous act or rampage on settling some score or righting some wrong. In their own warped sense of logic (engaging in an evil for an alleged evil), they were right to do what they did. The actions of others, they claim, led them to do what they did. That leads inevitably to the old “ends justifies the means” argument, which is always morally bankrupt.

But we should also know, even as the horrendous act in Paris sinks in, that such actions are actually fewer in number and less frequent than at other times in human history. It may be hard for us to believe because of the media available today, but war and other forms of political violence (like the examples above) are declining. As Steven Pinker illustrates in his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, deaths related to such political violence are falling. This coincides with a steady decline worldwide of extreme poverty, child mortality, and hunger as well as the continued growth, since the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago, of the number of countries that are democracies.

Of course, such perspective doesn’t help those who mourn now for their murdered loved ones and fellow citizens. For now, we should just grieve with them and share their outrage and sadness, while also reminding ourselves about the historical moral bankruptcy of responding to evil with more evil. But I do hope it helps us all take a step back and see the arc of history better. As Dr. Martin Luther King said in 1967, Jr. (paraphrasing the words of the Reverend Theodore Parker a century before): “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”.

+Scott

 
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The Doubled-Edged Sword of Social Media (eCrozier #237)

On October 26, 2014, in culture, media, Social Media, by bishopbenhase

In 2006, I was Rector of St Philip’s Church in Durham, North Carolina. Not far from our family home and near the East Campus of Duke University, was the Duke Lacrosse house, a house rented by members of the team and infamously known in our neighborhood for loud parties, loutish behavior, and inane vandalism. When some team members were accused of raping an exotic dancer hired to perform at the house, many were ready to believe the accusation. I stayed away from jumping on that bandwagon, limiting my public comments to the known, unseemly behavior of some of the team members in our neighborhood.

Social Media was in its infancy then, but it lit up, as did the gossip around town. Some people in Durham jumped to conclusions and made prejudgments, and then defended such behavior by saying “I’m just expressing my feelings” or “I have a right to state my opinions,” thereby washing their hands of the consequences to real people by jumping to easy conclusions, rendering rash judgments, or making quick condemnations. Social Media has expanded greatly since then, but we who use it have not had an equal expansion in our ethical behavior or our moral compasses.

We’re called as Jesus’ disciples to have moral courage even as we confess our sin. As we sin, our sin should be one of missing the mark like an arrow falling short of a target (the Greek word for sin in the Bible actually means just that). So, in our discipleship we’re at least attempting to shoot the arrow, even if it misses wildly or falls short of the target. Yes, even our best efforts can be an occasion for sin. But they’re to be our best efforts shaped by mercy, humility, and compassion, even as we are sinners.

And that brings us to the recent unpleasantness at General Seminary, which you may know about. It became fueled in social media by quick condemnations of the Board of Trustees and prejudgments about the Dean. While decrying not having contact with the Board, 8 faculty members had their demands posted on social media and on their own website accusingly named “safe seminary.” The Board’s lack of official public communication was proof in some people’s minds of their unwarranted behavior. Many accepted the Dean’s guilt without waiting for an investigation. But those weighing in on social media didn’t have all the information, nor did they have the perspectives of all sides in the conflict. Some offered prayers for everyone involved, but many leapt to conclusions calling for the dean to resign and the Board of Trustees to repent.

I don’t know the whole story and very few of us do. I’m waiting, listening, and learning before reaching any measured judgment. Some of my colleagues in the House of Bishops have rightly requested all involved to seek repentance and reconciliation. Amen. I have no doubt there’s enough sin to go around on all sides. The bloggers, and the blog sites that were their enablers, weren’t included in that request. Those blog sites were just giving people a wide forum to express themselves. And those bloggers were just stating their opinions. Social media is a wonderful way to stay in touch with one another, but it’s a double-edged sword. We should all be careful how we wield it. It cuts deeply.

+Scott

 
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“Jesus was a white man, too.” ??? – God became as we are (eCrozier #201)

On December 20, 2013, in christmas, incarnational, media, by bishopbenhase

“For you kids watching at home, Santa just is white…You know, I mean, Jesus was a white man, too.” – A Cable News Anchor

What’s really sad about the above quote is that people who heard this news anchor say these words on a “news” station might actually be led to believe that she, as a news reporter, was reporting the truth. I’m intentionally withholding her name and network because I have no desire to pile on, adding to the national hullabaloo her clearly ignorant statement has created. That just keeps us all deeply entrenched in our own tribes and then, depending on the issue and the instance, we get mobilized into attack or defense mode for our tribe (if you’ve followed this story then you’ve seen that’s exactly what’s happened).

What I find much more interesting, important, and therefore more to the point of our sinful humanity, is the pattern into which we all, bar none, are inclined: Creating God in our own image. If we’re honest with ourselves, we all want a god who looks and acts like us. We want a god who shares our prejudices, proclivities, and politics. We want a god who agrees with us so we can rest easy knowing we’re OK, while those who don’t look and act like us are bound for eternal judgment. One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons shows an Episcopal priest at the breakfast table with his wife saying to her: “Darling, last night I had the most wonderful dream. I dreamt that God agreed with me on everything.” I’m sure God finds this more than a little bit amusing.

But the irony in the news anchor’s ignorance was that she was on to the truth: That was exactly what God did in the incarnation of Jesus at Christmas…but with a twist. God became as we are. God became fully human and not just an idealized form of humanity. Jesus became human into the same wonderful, diseased, joyous, alienated, beautiful, and sinful humanity as the rest of us. And here’s the twist: he became human, not so he could be like us, but rather so we might be like him. He came to take us, in the complexity and messiness of our humanity, into the divine life of God.

Vassar Miller in her poem: The Wisdom of Insecurity, wrote this: God will not play our games nor join our fun, Does not give tit for tat, parade His glories. Christmas celebrates the most profound of acts: God fully sharing our humanity in Jesus. But in our celebration, let’s be clear: In becoming human God doesn’t share our prejudices, proclivities, and politics. God doesn’t play our petty tribal games, nor does God engage in silly, retributive one-up-man-ship. God comes to us at Christmas, not to play games, but to reveal his nature and to redeem the world in and through Jesus.

Jesus is black, brown, red, yellow, and yes, white, and every other possible hue of human skin because he’s God incarnate, the Creator and Redeemer of humankind. In a way that I’m sure she didn’t intend it, the news anchor in question, in a clueless, backdoor way, got it kind of, somewhat right. Santa, however, is pretty much all pink with a blue nose and toes. You know how cold it is at the North Pole, don’t you?

+Scott

 
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Palin, Weiner, and the “vast wasteland” (eCrozier #93)

On June 10, 2011, in media, politics, by bishopbenhase

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin recently made some ill-considered comments about Paul Revere’s famous ride. Later, when a reporter gave her an opportunity to reconsider what she had said, she decided to double-down on her comments rather than just admit she misspoke and correct herself. Representative Anthony Weiner from New York did something even more ill-considered (I’ll let you discover that on your own if you don’t already know. It would make me blush to write it here). When his actions became public, he also doubled-down on his lie and claimed his Twitter account was hacked. He did later, to his credit, confess his lie (well, he did not actually say, “lie.” We hope for too much sometimes). The lives of Palin and Weiner are just two more “reality shows” on the network of our lives.

And some people actually claim there is no such thing as sin any more.

I do not think human nature is any worse now than it has been throughout human history. The difference these days is that the ever-present media gets word out about our failures, lies, and foibles within seconds after we make them. When George Washington confessed to his father about that famous cherry tree incident, my hunch is that it stayed between him and his father for most of his lifetime until he casually mentioned the story to a friend one day and then it got into our national story (Note: Please no replies to me claiming the incident about the cherry tree was made up. I want to hold on to a few illusions about our history before they are shattered).

Fifty years ago, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow warned that our media, particularly television, was a becoming a “vast wasteland” of “screaming, cajoling, and offending” (and this was before “American Idol” and “The Apprentice”). Minow’s warnings have gone unheeded. Reality shows in our media are examples of what sociologist Daniel Boorstin calls “pseudo-events.” They are not real. Really. I’m not kidding. Although they involve real people doing real things, they are no more real than were the gladiators in the arenas of ancient Rome. Their purpose is the same: first to titillate and then to narcotize the population.

I guess we’d like to think that we humans have grown up over the millennia; evolved into better human beings and that our “nature” would lead us to become (as Lincoln so hoped) “better angels.” That certainly has been the great project of western culture. Our modern sensibilities have led us to believe that through education, cultivation in the arts, and scientific progress our natures would be molded and shaped into higher, nobler ones. But that belief should have been always questioned and doubted. The German commandants at the death camps spent their evenings listening to recordings of the best opera and reading the great literature and poetry of the day and in the morning they sent Jews to the gas chambers. Our moral sense and our moral actions have to be molded and shaped by more than education, art, and science. And our current appetite for that which titillates and narcotizes will only lead us to tolerate more Palin and Weiner “reality shows” in the media arena of our future.

+Scott

 
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eCrozier # 90

On May 20, 2011, in media, by bishopbenhase

In this spring’s issue of The Hedgehog Review, Thomas de Zengotita writes about what he calls “the flattery of representation.” He writes: “We have been consigned by it to a new plane of being, a new kind of life-world, an environment of representations of fabulous quality and inescapable ubiquity, a place where everything is addressed to us, everything is for us, and nothing is beyond
us anymore.” (emphasis mine)

Zengotita contends that ubiquitous media flatter us with attention. We get our own personal mobile ring tones and our choice of individualized media when we go online. In this age, life is designed to focus on us and for us. As social media leads to social movements like MoveOn or the Tea Party, it thrives because it creates the illusion that each participant is indispensably at the center of the movement. The reality, of course, is different. Each participant is actually being manipulated to accomplish a particular group’s agenda. Is it any wonder then we have the political climate we have? Each legislator is saturated by this flattery, so why wouldn’t he or she expect to get exactly what he or she wants with no need listen to another’s point of view or to consider compromise? Why compromise when we believe the world really should be our oyster?

Media, and particularly, advertisers have always known that flattery sells. For example, an Oldsmobile ad a few years ago promised that when you turned your Oldsmobile “on” it would then “turn you on.” Oh my! Or, the Reebok ad that promised that if you wore their sneaker then it would let “you be you.” Even the U.S. Army decided it needed to flatter to bump up enlistment, so they promised that you could be an “Army of One” or you could “be all you could be” if you joined up (my hunch is that drill instructors at boot camp didn’t confirm that). So flattery for the sake of manipulation has been with us for a long time. What is different now is that such flattery is hyper-realized with so many more media inputs in our lives, all of which flatter the inner-narcissist in us all.

If Zengotita is observing our present age accurately, and I believe he is, then the Church has an enormous challenge in front of us in terms of communicating the Gospel of Jesus. For the Gospel of Jesus is fundamentally not about us. The Gospel tells us we’re not the principal actors on the world’s stage. We’re bit players, at best character actors, in the drama God is unfolding. The world isn’t about our desires and preferences. It’s about what God has done and is doing in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ. That’s a tough sell to people who’ve come to believe that life should only really be about what they want.

In a world where everyone is “special” and demands to be catered to, the Gospel must seem a foreign language. Those who eagerly await the so-called Rapture tomorrow have been unwittingly sucked into this vortex of flattery. They’re “special” because they’ll be “raptured” while others, who aren’t as special, will not. They’ve forgotten that we’re not called to be on the Program Committee. We’re called to be on the Welcoming Committee. And we can only know that role if we ignore our inner narcissist and humbly serve, not our will, but the will of God who sent Jesus to redeem the world.

+Scott

 
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