Thom Rainer's insightful perspective on Christians using social media

LifeWay's president, Thom Rainer, offers caution to Christian leaders in their use (or abuse) of social media platforms. He lists seven warnings which are relevant not only to leaders but anyone employing social media like Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Among the seven warnings are:

1. Consider anything you say on social media to be permanent. Yes, you can delete or scrub regretful things you have said on social media but, more times than not, the information can still be retrieved. And countless people take screen shots the moment they see something unwisely posted.

5. Too many Christian leaders are posting on social media in the heat of emotional moments. If you are angry or otherwise agitated, take a 24-hour break from social media. If not, you may regret it later.

7. The non-Christian world is watching Christians attack each other on social media. Our Christian witness is compromised again and again by our social media actions. When we say or write scathing attacks on others, non-believers see us as hypocritical, inconsistent, and unworthy of emulating.

Dr. Rainer's warnings are timely and helpful in light of the tragic and untimely death of Braxton Caner, fifteen year old son of Ergun and Jill Caner. Only a few short weeks before the young Caner took his own life, he had been harassed on Twitter by a gang of internet thugs who wanted to get at Ergun Caner through his son. The incident lead JD Hall, one of the ringleaders of the decade-old muckraking campaign against Braxton's father, to post a lengthy statement not only proclaiming his profound sorrow for attacking the young boy, but also vowing to step away from his ceaseless efforts to bring Ergun Caner down.

 

Read Thom Rainer's full article at Baptist Press: "Warnings for church leaders who use social media"    

Comments

[CASEY]

I see in today's BP that Lifeway will stop selling Mark Driscoll's books. Talk about a "social media violator"...Mark was(is) exhibit #1. Since the SBC in Louisville and every SBC Convention since then someone has begged Rainer at a microphone to stop selling the "junk" that most preachers preach against every Sunday as well as a book promoting the sin of sodomy. What is so difficult about that? Let me rhetorically answer that, "When leadership is 'top down' they simply don't(and won't) get it." If they believe, as the SBC was set-up, that we are a 'grass roots convictional Bible believing' convention...then a response to the convention by resolution or motion is recognized and acted upon. Rainer has ignored Bible believing Southern Baptists for years on this issue. In fact, in a deceptive way, he gave misleading bureaucracy answers in his report(s)[including Houston] that these books / info was not being sold. VP of Lifeway sought me out(at the SBC in Houston) and told me there was no way these books were getting in their stores....when in fact I had seen them and had pictures of them.
Probably the most disturbing in Houston(SBC) was I pointedly asked Rainer at the microphone, "Can we at least agree here and now that book(s) on the "sin of sodomy" should be stopped and not sold at Lifeway?"
Silence (crickets).........

[Max]

"Rainer has ignored Bible believing Southern Baptists for years on this issue."

Casey - It is increasingly clear that LifeWay works independently from the desires of the SBC majority. Stocking Driscoll's pornographic "Real Marriage" was an indication of that. LifeWay continued to keep Dricoll's books on the shelf until the potty-mouth preacher's temperature hit a fever level which could not be ignored. Driscoll helped put New Calvinism on the road and was rewarded for that with sizable book royalties - his books were selling like hot cakes, being snatched up by the young, restless and reformed as quick as LifeWay put them on the shelf. LifeWay is a book-seller, so they continued to feed the Driscollites with what they wanted. It was good marketing strategy. But even Driscoll couldn't escape the obvious when the ax fell ... even the Acts 29 organization he founded called him to account! (LifeWay should have dropped him long before that - the hand writing was on the wall).

Look for "resurgent" New Calvinist leaders to put as much distance between them and Driscoll as the "emergent" faithful did with Rob Bell. Both are now liabilities to their respective movements. Also look for Driscoll books at yard sales - that's a good barometer of a ministry which has fallen out of favor. No reason to order them on Amazon - you will be able to pick them up for a quarter down the block. (P.S. Southern Baptists really need to pray for discernment regarding its publishing house).

[CASEY]

MAX, I don't disagree with any of what you said but I believe I want to "fine tune" one of your statements.
Supposedly Driscoll was a terrific "book draw"...but now that we find out that he had others buying thousands of his books to get him on the NYTimes Best Seller list.....do we really even know the truth about his book sales? I pray every day that his perverted influence will be diminished........

[Lydia]

Max,

Some churches were using his books in classes. So who nows goes back to these young men and says, "we were wrong".

What leader is willing to step up to the plate and say, we should have seen this coming like Lydia the nobody the blogger tried to warn us over 6 years ago-- pointing all the red flags. (wink)

More seriously, there were tons of red flags and evidence this guy was off the rails years ago. Driscoll had no where else to go on the trajectory he was on that our YRR raved about at the time: But he preaches the Gospel!!

This a great illustration for us to use with youth about bandwagons, movements, group think and peer pressure. And we have to admit to them adults are not always wise, now are they?

It just became too embarassing so they did "something" to distance themselves. Now, what about all the money the SBC has poured into Acts 29? It has Driscoll DNA all over it. Many of the young YRR church plant guys were trained by him and were SBC. We may have more to answer for than we think. The move came way too late.

[Max]

"Some churches were using his books in classes."

And they probably bought them from LifeWay! Lydia, my heartache with SBC's publishing house began a few years ago when I noted that LifeWay’s young adult Sunday School literature was slanted in a reformed direction. Our church was using LifeWay's Life Matters “Threads” material. In 2011, I complained to LifeWay’s editor of these publications about the extensive use of marginal notations pointing students to sermons, articles, books, websites, and blogs by leading influencers of the New Calvinism movement. For example, in the Winter 2010/2011 Life Matter’s issue, I noted that students were referred predominantly to non-SBC reformed leaders for extracurricular readings/sermons, including: John Piper, Tim Keller, Francis Chan, C.J. Mahaney ... and, yes, Mark Driscoll. There were frequent marginal notes highlighting Piper’s Desiring God website, as well as Driscoll’s Resurgence site. Visiting either of these will take you on a linked tour of who’s-who and what’s happening in New Calvinism … from the newest book to recommended conferences/events. However, it should be noted that recent issues of Life Matters appear to have addressed this subtle approach to introducing young adults to a reformed “thread” (perhaps others complained as well), as I don’t see as many marginal references of this sort compared to issues produced in 2010-2011 and perhaps earlier. But then came The Gospel Project with its Calvinist advisory team, along with the continued promotion of Driscoll amidst increasing concerns about him from various corners of the Christian community. No, I'm not a fan of LifeWay right now.

[Scott Shaver]

Wish Tom would spend more time reviewing manuscripts than sending out LinkedIn notices.

[Lydia]

Casey, there is the other problem of all the Driscoll plagurism.

[CASEY]

LYDIA: I agree. I was hitting the highlights(or should I say lowlights). If we listed all his perversion and mention all those who defended him until just recently we would run out of ink.

[Chris]

Peter,

Is it me or do I sense a double standard with this post. On other posts of yours, you insist everyone stay on topic. You are quick to warn folks about attacks, to stop off topic comments from being posted, etc.

Yet NONE of these comments has anything to do with Rainer's article, they are all attacks on his leadership at LifeWAY and LIfeWay's decisions about Driscoll's books. There are no comments from you about it the commenters behavior at all.

What gives?

[JND]

"Some were using his books in classes."

Any chance they were used to encourage students to think? To challenge them to critically examine popular works in light of the Bible?