Has the internet and social media helped, or digressed the gospel of Christ?

As of late, I have been thinking a lot about this topic. The internet has been around since the 1960’s (military use in the USA) then gone public with highly educated “techies” in the mid to late 80’s. And went public with mostly text websites in the 90’s.
The internet went graphics as we know it a little later. Computers were expensive to purchase, it wasn’t high speed. The internet connected via dial up (couldn’t talk and connect at the same time, annoying when you had to call tech support). Then finally it came to high speed that you could talk and be online at the same time.
Then the younger generation jumped all over it. Fantastic websites, made by professionals, information coming from all around the developed world. Emails were helping people communicate much faster than snail mail. Just hit send, and within seconds, the recipient would get their message. A few more minutes if you attached a photo, or a file.
Then came social media and chat came around. Myspace and ICQ, MSN Messenger, then the all too well known, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and tons more.
While all these are great tools to connect with people, that’s about where they stop. We have now reduced our lives to videos that are less than 10 minutes. Any longer and we see it as a waste of time. Reading? We don’t read anymore, we skim. We have so much information coming at us from every angle that we can’t wait to get to the next article.
Which brings me to my topic. Has the internet helped us with the gospel of Christ? I see it as a yes and a no. The big thing about reading the bible, is we must familiarize ourselves with the historic content of the literature we are reading. While the book was written 2000 yrs ago, the applications are timeless.
How often do we read something, and don’t apply the correct context to it. When Christ talks about women, in the bible. He gives them as much honour as he gives men. In that culture, women were unfortunately viewed as property. And still are in a number of cultures.
But people read right over that. We’re too busy looking for the next thing. Which is why I believe the internet and social media do a bit of harm when it comes to spreading the gospel.
We put the link to an article about persecution from somewhere else around the world, and before even reading it, we judge it. Many “Christian” people around the world now have access to the internet and spread hate towards homosexuality, abortion, races, communist countries, and you can pretty much insert whatever you want here and they all claim the bible supports them.
Another issue is that more and more employers are looking at your Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and such to see what kind of context you post. If you hate a certain group of people, you may not get the job, and if you have the job, you may lose it.
Anyone can now post anything they want. There seems to be a quote from Albert Einstein, whether he coined it or not, it stands true more and more as we look at our younger generations. “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.
When people like the Westboro Baptist Church (if you want to see everything a Christian does NOT stand for, see their site) now have the internet to post anything they want. And then people around the world find their site with a few bible verses, and the title “Christian” and they tell me “You Christians are all so judging”. Well, once again, we have to look at the context and the motive of the heart.
Others are using Facebook to push their views against or for something. But since we can’t convey emotions with text, if you had a bad day and are angry, you will read it with an angry tone. Even if the writer had nothing but compassion in their heart while they wrote it.
I can see the internet and social media as helping reach people all around the world with the gospel. But one must be very cautious that cultures around the world don’t have the same views you have. And they may not read the text with the same tone you wrote with. I will never apologize for sharing the gospel and truth about how much sin offends God. I will however choose my avenues carefully.
I was a big proponent of posting things about God all the time, and articles putting down homosexuality, abortion, politics and much more on Facebook. I have discovered only one thing, it enraged people in the wrong way since they often thought I put those things on my wall with a judging heart.
I now very rarely post anything controversial on my wall, not in fear of man, but in fear of being taken out of context. Still the best way to share the gospel is sharing it on the street, having a coffee, inviting someone to your house to explain it. That way, if they have questions, you can answer them without everyone else feeding off from someone’s bad comment online.