Does Twitter Do Us Any Good?

In his June 13 Christianity Today article, Mark Galli raised some interesting issues by comparing the doctrine of the Trinity to twitter. Twitter and the Trinity? Now that's my kind of thinker!

In his article, Galli compares the relationships among the members of the Trinity to relationships among the people of God. He then raises questions about impact of electron-based social media upon the biblical concept of community. (You can click on the title of this blog, also the title of his article, to read his comments in full.)

Before I tackle the issue of cyber community, first I want to look at an underlying issue in his article: the concept of intrinsic godliness or godlessness. At one point Galli asks, in effect, "Is technology godly?" To me, that's like asking, "Is a pen godly?"

Think of the words written throughout the centuries. Wars have been started, romances flamed, governments formed, contracts made, and (most notably) Scripture composed all, by the use of writing instruments. Yet, no one I know would go to down to the office supply department of their local Walmart and begin a debate with about the inherent goodness or badness of a pack of pens. Clearly, the goodness and badness can be found in what has been written on the page.

What does the Bible say about this? The book of James chapter 1 helps us here. Verse 14 tells us that each person is tempted when he is enticed and drawn away by his own evil desires. In other words, badness and goodness come from the desires within the heart. So, when I sit down to write, the things that go down on the page come not from the pen, but from my heart.

The same can be said of technology. The issues of holiness and evil are not found in the technology itself, but in the hearts of the users.

I want to thank Laura Christianson for alerting me to Galli's article. You can visit her social media solution website at http://www.bloggingbistro.com/ or benefit from her adoption expertise at http://www.laurachristianson.com/laura/.

In my next blog, I'll tackle the issue of the cyber community versus the Christian community.

Gettin' Real,
Melodie