Social Media, Politics & Jesus: When Should Christians Speak?

Do you ever struggle with when to speak up and when to shut up? But one thing is necessary, right? And as believers, we got to get back to that one thing. Hello there, you're listening to the Girl Talk podcast. My name is Carol. I'm Kelly. I'm Tricia. And we're glad you've joined us today. Yes. I bet we can't guess who came up with this topic. All day, every day. It was me, big me, right? Sometimes it's hard to know, especially in the culture that we live in today, where everyone seems to have a platform. And an opinion. Yeah, and an opinion. So let's dive right into this. When it comes to current events, which has been the topic that I've seen the most people have the most comments about just recently, and I'm sure that's not going to change. But how do you handle that? What do you girls do as far as knowing when to speak up and knowing when to keep your traps shut? Well, you know, I learned a very valuable lesson back during COVID. Okay. When we were dealing with kind of all of this opinion on steroids the first time around, at least for me, where I made some missteps and said some things out loud I probably should not have said out loud. Okay. I said my opinion out loud. I lost friends over some of that, that I had relationships I had to rebuild because people had a difference of opinions. I still have a little bit of, if I'm really honest, animosity kind of stored up with people who were super ugly to me during that time, because they had a different opinion than I had. So I don't want to go back there. Yeah. So I'm really careful to not. I try to say anything that is inflammatory. I try to really do, have a filter on myself to really say, is this going to do, what are my motivations? I try to check my motivations. Well, that's, that's why I want to kind of like, I don't want to stop you, but I want to kind of go underneath all that and say, where do we start? Because I think, I think when we're dealing with this kind of subject, we have to first think of what we want to accomplish. Mm-hmm. Because that is different for all different kinds of people. Um, I've been reminded here recently just of, of believers and unbelievers and how we don't share the same opinions on a lot of things, but there are some things that we do share same opinions on. And so if I'm talking to a non-believer, is the goal to win and to be right, or is the goal to be like Christ? Mm-hmm. And often those two things are not. They can be, but often they're not because they're fueled by my own pride. Right. Because I want to be right. And I think that kind of, so I think for me, starting from a place of saying, okay, what is my relationship with this person? And what is, what is the, what is this going to accomplish? What is the end goal of this conversation? Yeah. Um, I think that helps me a lot kind of filter through and go, okay, wait just a minute. Is this something that. 10 years down the road from now is not going to matter or 10 minutes down the road from now, it's not going to matter. And is it, is it an emotionally charged situation where I really need to choose my words wisely? You know, that helps me at least to kind of take a step back. I'm, I tend to be a more emotionally driven person. So I, I'm, I have to really be careful because I'm quick to act on emotion. Right. Right. And then I go, oh man, why'd I say that? And I have to backtrack and do what you just said. But, but, but I'm learning as I get older that if I'll stop for just a minute and kind of evaluate in the moment where I'm at, where I'm at with this person, is this really a hill I want to die on? And what is the end goal of this relationship? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I have a little bit of a different way of approaching it and I'm not saying it's a good way, actually. I typically don't engage in any of this sort of thing, whether it's politics. Or the health stuff or, or whatever it might be. I, I'm, I'm kind of reticent to throw my hat in the ring. I don't want, this age we get canceled, friendships get lost. I'm afraid I don't, I don't know the right words. I don't know what to say and I don't want to start like some big nasty fight, whether it's social media or in person or whatever. So I find myself a little reticent to even engage. Okay. So do you think there is a difference? Do you feel more comfortable engaging in a personal conversation than you do on like say a social media platform? Yes. Right. Primarily because I can gauge the experience with the other person. Right. And my offending them, body language, facial expressions, all those cues. Yes. And I can be aware if I've overstepped boundaries or whatever, but yeah, social media is a scary place for me to try to put something out. Yeah. I think one of the things that's important too about this face to face. Uh, conversation is that you can also judge the other person's, um, uh, attitudes, behaviors, um, emotion, their own emotion in it. So not just checking ourselves, but checking what the relation, the conversation you're walking into. Sometimes people will post something on Facebook that they think is pretty, you know, not emotionally charged for, it's not emotionally charged for them. They don't mean it to be emotionally charged. It's emotionally charged for you. And so all of a sudden there's a bound, you know, a disruption of the balance. There's a balance of what the emotion is, but that's the kind of stuff that you can judge when you're face to face. It's the, you know, are you, do you really want to have a conversation about this? And, uh, how are we going to, how can we have that conversation? Um, and you can tiptoe through it as opposed to either one of you going in like a bull in a china shop. Yeah. But, but social media makes it so easy because they're like, how are you feeling? Or what, what, what are you, how are you feeling? What's on your mind today? I'm going to feed into that. But here's what I, here's another thing that I think could help us with this because a friend of mine told me this a long time ago. Um, she said, when you disagree with somebody, get curious. I like that. And I was like, huh? And she goes, it doesn't mean you have to agree with them, but get curious and take an interest in their position. If it's a, if it's a political position or if it's a, a, a cultural thing or whatever the case may be, just get curious and ask good questions. Because number one, that shows them that you value their opinion on this and that you're willing to, to, to explore it a little bit. And I think that kind of loosens us up for conversation further on the matter instead of it being, I'm right, you're wrong. We disagree and we can't be friends because this issue, right? Right. And so if we can get curious, sometimes what happens in those moments of curiosity, is that you discover the real meaning behind their position. Yeah. On said, uh, political event, current event, you discover what it is. And usually it's not the issue. It's something way under there. Yeah. Deeper. Well, and I think too, oftentimes in all, in all, um, discussions, there's, um, black and white, and then there's some sort of gray in the middle and most truth lives in that middle ground between, um. Um, the polar opposites of people's opinions and strong emotions around the way they're interpreting the current event of the moment, whatever it is, you know, the right side, the left side, um, there's usually the middle is where you'll actually find the truth of what's happened and how we should process whatever current event it is. And you won't know that unless you actually have conversations with people face to face, you know, and it's, uh, um. It's a different kind of, uh, way to unpack the, the, the reality of whatever that current event is, is that it's not, um, it's not the camps. It's not the, I'm in this camp or I'm in that camp or I'm at this polar end and you're at that polar end and I have to hate you because, you know, you have a different opinion than I do and you're, you know, I've been being told that you're, you know, an idiot because you think that way and that, um, you're the enemy and no. In reality, we're some, all of it's somewhere in the middle. Well, there've been reading about a particular technique that helps with this because I think we've lost the art of conversation in our culture. We don't have conversations. We respond to each other or react to each other. And, um, I just read something last night that I've been trying to put into place, which is it's the, the, the skill of listening, not listening to respond, not thinking up what I want to say next, but really listening to what the person has to say. Yeah. Um, and there's just an openness and a vulnerability that, that you have to have to really truly listen to somebody. Right. Um, and it is, I think it's a skill because I think it has to be practiced and we can lose the ability to do it if we spend too much time and social media doesn't allow for that. Right. There is no listening. It's just responding and reacting. Yeah. So, um, I'm trying to listen better. - Mm-hmm, that's a good lesson for all of us. But I also think that we only surround ourselves with people who agree with us a lot of times. That seems to be the culture. You can find a news station that agrees with you. You can find a publication that agrees with you. Yeah, that's right. You can find people on social media that will completely agree with you. And we tend to shy away from those people who are different. But, you know, those are the things that make our country, the United States of America, such a great country is the differences that we have. And somehow we've weaponized those against each other and we've made it wrong to disagree. I mean, I can remember when there was a time in when I was growing up that no matter what political party you belong to, you could sit down and have dinner. Oh, yeah. Now? Yeah. I mean, maybe it happens every once in a while, but not usually. Yeah. Because the divide is so great. And I just think you're right. We have lost the ability to have conversations about things because we only surround ourselves with people who agree with us, which I don't think is healthy. It's not. And if we are as believers, which we are, called to be witnesses to a lost and dying world, if we are called to be holy and set apart, if we're called to be Jesus's hands and feet, if all we do is just be a witness to a lost and dying world, if we are called to be a witness to a lost and dying world, if all we do is surround ourselves with our echo chamber and we don't engage and we don't really listen to hear what somebody else is going through, what are we doing? You know, how are we really ever going to reach other people with the truth of the gospel and the love of the gospel if all we do is dig our holes and our trenches deeper and say, nope, I'm not crossing that line. I'm not going to have dinner with you because you're going to argue with me or I'm going to argue with you. Yeah, lean in. Be careful. I'm not going to have dinner with you. I'm curious so that it opens up that window to have gospel conversations. Part of what's fueling this is this idea that if you disagree with me, you hate me. You are a hater. And how do we break that mentality? How do we break in and say, hey, I can still disagree with you and I can still love you because Jesus loves me and loves you. You know, that's the thing. What do we do? How do we do that as believers? I think it goes back to we only surround ourselves with people who believe like us. And the anecdote to that is to get uncomfortable. Yeah. Develop relationships with people who don't agree with you. Because here's the thing. I don't know of any relationship in my life that I've had with somebody who is different than me, looks different than me, believes different than me, votes different than me, just lives their whole life different than me. I can't think of one. I've had relationships where I haven't learned something from that person, you know, and it may be that it just can be any number of things. But I think that's what helps us to understand why just today I heard some terrible news about a family that I know and some trouble that had come upon them. And on social media, people were just having a heyday. And I thought, you know, here's the thing. They're going through it enough already, right? And they're going through it enough already, right? And all these people are just adding fuel to the fire. And it hurt my heart because I know that if my life was played on a screen for everybody to see, it would not be a painless experience for me because I've made a lot of mistakes. And we tend to forget that. We tend to forget that we didn't come into this world knowing everything. I'll segue and kind of take a little rabbit trail for just a minute. At the beginning of the year, I'm part of a life group with my church. And we were talking about everybody's word for the year. You know, you choose word for the year. And I was like, I don't really have a word for the year, you know? And so I sat down with the Lord. I had some free time and I sat down. I was like, Lord, I just want you to give me, why don't you give me a word for the year? You know, I was wanting something like, give me a good one, God. Yeah. Give me a good word. Power or something. And don't make it patience, please. And he was like, no, no, I'm not giving you a word. And I was like, just give me a word. He's like, no, I'm giving you two words. And I was like, okay, I can get on board with two words. And he was like, okay. So he took me to the part, shut up. It was not, but he probably would like to give me those words. But, but he took me to scripture where it's the account where Mary and Martha, uh, uh, Mary is busy doing all the things. Martha sitting at Jesus feet, Mary goes and tells honor to Jesus, like Jesus, can you tell her to get in here in the kitchen and wash some dishes, please. And Jesus says, Mary, Mary, she has chosen. Oh, actually the, the, the, the verbiage that my translation said was Mary, one thing is necessary. And he said, Carol, your words for the year, one thing, one thing is necessary. And I share that because when it comes to the one thing that we as believers need to be about, it's just what you said. It's just what you said about telling other people where they can find hope because we live in a hopeless world. And so that took me back to the very basics. Um, and it took me back to square one where God said, you, you didn't know everything, you know, in Job, we talks about how, where were you when I created the world, the stars in place, where were you? Do you know everything? No, you know. And I think sometimes we can get that mentality. We know everything. And this is where we stand because this is an important issue. And, and yes, it might be, but one thing is necessary, right? Um, and I just really, um, I'm pursuing that this year and trying to, to be curious and trying to listen well. And all the things that you said, because I think we've, we've forgotten the most important thing as believers. Well, the Bible tells us how we're supposed to act. You know, the Bible says do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Um, James 1 19 says, be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. And then the next verse of that says, human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. And we live in an anger fueled world where everything, um, is going to fuel that strong emotions for us. So, you know, for us to be, um, attractive, yes, to the world so that they will see Jesus in us, we have to be different than the world. And so we got to be counter-cultural. One of the ways we can do that is by dialing it way down with our anger, our rhetoric, our emotion, um, and follow scripture finger wagging. Yeah. It's the loving approach, right? It's, it's love. Only love can do that can overwhelm hate. And, you know, I, I know people have good intentions, but I just, oh, I hate it when I open up a social media and I see a post from a fellow believer in Christ and it is a snide comment or a rude, a rude thing, um, saying something. And I, I believe that the motive behind it is they want to stand up for their faith, but it's the approach that you take. That's not loving and it's not effective. It's like the version of the, the, the person on the corner, the street preacher screaming and saying, everybody's going to hell. Okay. We know that there's truth in messages, but the way we deliver them makes all the difference. And are we delivering them in love? Because he says, operate in love. But even if it's the right motive, like you want to share your faith, but you're doing it in a way that is actually repulsing people, that's not helpful. We had a really, um, compelling guest. For devotions yesterday. Um, and she was not a believer and she was living, uh, uh, a lifestyle that, that most of us would not agree with. And, um, she got invited to church and she got invited to church and then she got invited back and she kept going. And all of a sudden she just felt a restlessness within her. And she said, I had to go to the front and talk to this pastor about what all this was about. She was like, I don't know. I just did. I didn't know what was going to happen. And she said, he took me by the hand and he looked at me eye to eye and said, you're welcome here. And if anybody makes you not feel welcome here, you come talk to me, you come tell me about that. And I just, there was such power in the whole room. Just, you could hear a pin drop because everybody was like, yes, that's how we want people to feel like you're welcome here. And, and she said, I had a lot of issues and a lot of bad things going on. I never once felt judged. And then I went to dinner with the pastor and we talked about the things in my life. And he told me that the lifestyle I was living was an affront to the, to the Lordship of Christ. And I was like, well, that's severe. He goes, I know, you know, it wasn't like he was wagging his finger at her, but he was just telling her the truth. And it was because of the love that he showed to her that she became a believer in Christ. And it was just a good reminder to me that there are people, there are interactions we have each and every day when we could love well and people could say there's something different about you and i want to know what that is yeah and along with that is the fact that we never know what god's doing in the hearts of these people that we're talking to yeah he may be just like just like our guests that you were talking about i loved that too working on their hearts calling them and so then when we have our opportunity to speak to them uh we need to be reinforcing what god is is the message god's giving them yeah yeah so be curious ask good questions listen well um start with the end goal in mind think about where you want this relationship to go and and what you want to um what you want to be on that person's mind when they think of you is it this is a good way to think about it yeah anything else you would add to the list of things that we could do love love loving approach you remember that you are the hands and feet of jesus to this world that you are the only jesus that some people will ever see and if you are um repulsive why are they gonna want a relationship with jesus so be winsome and attractive in the way that you speak and act so that they will see jesus in you so that they will want what you have because we know it's forever and it's beautiful it's so good makes me want to pull out a guitar and sing they will know we are christians by our love hey uh we would love to hear from you if you've got suggestions or things that have worked with you and go make a go make a coffee date with somebody who doesn't believe or vote or go to the same church that you do somebody who's different um it's time for us to wake up and to look outside of our normal circles for people that we can can get to know and and love well and um possibly even god would use us in their story so go do that this week and we'd love to hear from you you can email us at girl talk at the light fm.org get in touch on the facebook pages also don't forget to subscribe to this podcast uh when you do the moment we release a new episode you get it sent straight to your phone i know that because it comes straight to my phone and i think what did what did we say again yep and uh so you will get the podcast as soon as we release it and uh we just love doing life with you and uh if you'll leave a comment it'll help other people get to know the girl talk podcast so that ultimately they can get to know jesus we'd appreciate that so much and you know what we're gonna save you a seat next time we gather around these microphones for the next girl talk podcast