Why Gospel Coalition is so WRONG About Social Media

Hello there, this is AD Robles, and you're listening to AD on the Fight Laugh Feast Network. I'm just dancing. I'm not sure exactly what's going on here, but today I wanted to do a quick video, quick podcast.

I'm actually going to upload two podcasts today. One is going to be just the audio version of a video I did yesterday on Theonomy. I want more people to hear it because Theonomy gets this really bad kind of spooky vibe to it, and it's really not as spooky as everyone wants to make it out to be.

So I wanted to share that on the podcast form as well. But today's video is going to be more about social media, and I've got something to say that I think I haven't really heard too many other places, or really any other place.

Maybe I've picked this up somewhere. I'm not sure, but I'm not saying this started with me, but it's just something I've noticed regarding gospel coalitions, positions on social media, and sort of the way content gets shared.

And it's just really, it doesn't line up with the biblical stance on these issues, and so I want to talk a little bit more about that. But before I do, two things. One, if you haven't considered this already, please consider becoming a Fight Laugh Feast Club member.

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Use the show code ROBLES to let the guys know that you like my content. And also, let me just say this. I'm gonna, you know, kind of pitch my own products here. Check out behind me if you're watching the video.

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Why Social Media Fear Is a Legitimate Motivator

Now, let's talk about social media. There is a kind of a consensus, I think, when it comes to people that are conference speakers, people who write books, people who are blogging for the Gospel Coalition, the ERLC.

There's sort of a consensus about social media that's developed over the last, you know, few years, and that it's kind of changed over time. You know, when social media was first kind of taking off in popularity, there was a lot of hope.

People would talk about how great it was that they could share prayer requests, and Christians from all around the world would pray for you, and all of these things, and share content, and share the message of Jesus Christ.

And it was almost like a freshman in high school or a freshman in college, so full of hope and ready to face the world. And then they get the reality, and the reality isn't so clean. The reality is that we're all now veterans of the meme war, and there's all kinds of zings, and dunks, and all that kind of stuff, and you can see it every day.

Just look at your favorite Big Eva celebrities on Twitter, and their chances are, in the last week, they've complained, or been discouraged, or been troubled by the lack of charity in online communication, the un-Christlike behavior of people on Twitter, the dunking, the zings, the owning of people.

They really don't like that. And one of the primary things that they will say is that social media stokes fear and anger, and that is a problem in and of itself. Like, fear is something that should not drive action as much as love.

Fear should not, like, fear is almost like, it's like this thing that Christians can't use to their advantage. A Christian should not be peddling articles that make people fearful, or make people angry.

That's kind of off-limits. Like, the only thing that can motivate us is love, and it's not kind of like the love that we know from the Bible, that it's got a very clear definition. It's sort of like this ishy-squishy, sort of makes-me-feel-good-in-my-tum-tum kind of love, you know, the precious moments kind of love, where it's just gentleness and just loveliness all the time.

And that's just, we know that the Bible doesn't talk about love in that way. It does talk about love in a nice, gentle, kind kind of way. Of course it does, but love also requires zeal. We know that much.

We've talked about that a lot on this channel. There's no question about it. But this idea that fear shouldn't be motivating us, I don't think is biblical. So let me just say that in a very clear way.

This idea that is kind of pushed forward by Big Eva, that fear shouldn't be motivating us, I don't think it is biblical at all. In fact, I see the Bible again and again and again and again talking about how fear does motivate.

Fear is a good motivator, and I say this kind of thing a lot. And I'll give you an example from my personal life that I think is helpful, because, you know, sometimes I'll tell my wife, like, I want my children to fear my voice in a certain respect.

And what I mean by that is I don't want my children to be cowering in fear whenever I'm around because they think I'm going to fly off the handle and, you know, I'm just kind of arbitrary and yelling at them and stuff like that.

No, no, no. But what I do want them to do is I want them to fear my voice enough that they respect it. And I want to practice that with the little things, like when I tell them to clean up their toys or something like that.

Not because it's like the end of the world whether or not they clean up their toys, but my opinion is that there could be a situation when they're older that they better listen to me because it might be a matter of life and death.

Like, think about it. If my kid started jolting into the street, you know, we're about to get into the car, excuse me, and they start running in the street and I see a car coming and I say, Ezra, stop!

Because I don't want him to get hit by this car. I want to practice a situation where he fears my voice enough that he stops in his tracks when the car's coming. And we practice that with the little things that don't really matter so much in the grand scheme of things.

Like when I ask my son to clean up his toys, I expect him to clean up his toys and he knows that there are consequences if he doesn't. And again, it's not because of the toys in and of themselves, but I do want him to fear my voice enough so that when there's something that he really does need to listen to me and when he's older even, you know, when I tell him to avoid the wayward and loud and adulterous woman, right?

That kind of thing. These are more serious issues. I want him to fear my voice enough and to fear God enough to listen because I've made those mistakes, man. I didn't avoid the adulterous, loud, and wayward woman.

The temptress. I didn't do that. And it was a very bad thing. So you see there is a sense, and my wife doesn't, you know, my wife sees that and she understands that, but at the end of the day, like, you know, women, they want to have a more gentle and kind relationship with their kids and that's great because they need that too.

They need that too. So sometimes it's hard for her to understand that and I think this is partially Big Eva's fault because Big Eva, again, has promoted this idea that fear and anger should not motivate us.

I want my kids to listen to me because they love me, but fear is a legitimate motivator. Okay, so let me give you an example what I'm talking about. This is an article that I've criticized before and it's about social media and that me and Marcus Pittman, by the way, if you haven't listened to it, me and Marcus Pittman did a live stream last night about this article social media.

It says no social media algorithm rewards grace. Marcus's position was that first of all, that's not true. And second of all, who cares? I agree. This is not true. Social media algorithms do reward grace, but who cares?

I agree. That's what I want to talk about today because fear is a completely legitimate motivator. Listen to this. This is a quote pulled out from this article. It says no social media algorithm rewards grace.

Encouraging tweet threads aren't shared as much as angry ones. Cancel culture thrives because the reward systems and algorithms support mobs and most mobs are angry. We are more eager to share negative content because fear and anger push us to action more than love.

And that's the quote that they pulled out themselves. They think this is a quote that you should tweet and share on Facebook. They even have the little icons there so you can share this particular quote.

This is what their main thrust is. We are more eager to share negative content because fear and anger push us to action more than love. Now, the idea here is clear that this is not a good thing. They're not pulling this quote from the article because they think this is good.

No, Big Eva, the gospel coalition, this particular author, but really the whole machine thinks that this is bad. The fact that fear and anger push us to action in their opinion more than love, which I don't agree with, but that's a bad thing to them.

And I'm here to tell you that that's not a bad thing. I want you to think about the Bible for a second. Think about the Bible and the kinds of stories that you read in the Bible and the kinds of statements that are made in the Bible about fear.

And my question to you is, just think about them and we're going to read a few. Does the Bible present fear in this way? Does the Bible present anger in this way? I don't think so. I don't think so. There are certainly warnings about anger and fear in the Bible.

There's no question about it because there's a way to be angry in an inappropriate and sinful way. There's a way to be fearful in an inappropriate and sinful way. In fact, one of the classes of people that doesn't inherit the kingdom of God is cowards.

Cowards get the lake of fire. So there's a way that fear and anger and stuff like that is good. It controls and it goes overboard, but let me read to you some examples. This is from one of my favorite psalms called, well, it's not called this, but but this is what the ESV calls it.

The steadfast love of God endures. This is a mask of David when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul, David has come to the house of Emelech. Psalm 52. Listen to what it says about fear. It says, Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?

The steadfast love of God endures all the day. Your tongue plots destruction like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. You love evil more than good and lying more than speaking what is right. You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.

But God will break you down forever. He will snatch and tear you up from your tent. He will uproot you from the land of the living. And listen, ready? Here we go. The righteous shall see and fear and shall laugh at him saying, see the man who would not make God his refuge but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction.

You see that? The righteous see what happens to the wicked and how they're destroyed utterly by God. And they see it and they fear and they laugh. That's interesting. That's interesting. Here's Deuteronomy 13.

Deuteronomy 13 is talking about when people tell you to like serve other gods, right? And it says what you do is if someone tries to get you to serve other gods in the ancient state of Israel, then you should stone them.

No pity, no mercy. Pretty harsh, right? And here's what it says about what will happen after you stone those people that were seeking to have you join their rebellion against God in ancient Israel. Ready?

And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you. Very interesting, right? Very interesting. Here's Acts chapter 5, lest you think this is all from the Old Testament and hey, we're under grace now.

You know what I mean? Acts chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira, right? There were sanctions for Ananias and Sapphira lying to the Holy Spirit. They said that they sold their property and they sold it for this much, but really they kept some of that money back because they essentially wanted it for themselves.

They wanted to lie to the Holy Spirit. And so what does it say? What does it say? It says it twice in this section. This is chapter 5, verse 6. This is right after Ananias dies for his lie. It says, and a great fear came upon all who heard it.

And then his wife dies a couple sentences later. And what does it say in verse 11? And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard these things. You see, the Bible presents fear as a motivator.

The Bible presents fear in not the way that Gospel Coalition presents it. Well, why is Gospel Coalition so wrong about everything? Well, I think that they're just an imbalance. They're just an imbalance.

They present this ishy squishy version of Christianity that is not reality. They're out of touch with reality because fear, including fear on Twitter, is a motivator. The Bible says so. The Bible says people will see the results of sin and they will see it and fear and never do this thing again.

Fear is a motivator and it's a completely legitimate motivator. I was talking to Marcus last night and we were talking about the show To Catch a Predator, which I've talked about a couple times in the last few weeks.

And I again, I've said this before, I probably watched that show a little bit too much. You know what I mean? I got a little bit too much joy out of watching it. And it's a good show. It's a good show.

And when I used to watch it a lot, I don't so much anymore, but when I used to watch it a lot, I'd see these pedophiles get caught by Chris Hansen. He'd interview them and you could see them sweating and squirming and it's just like, man, right on, man.

That's justice, finally, for these kids, right? And there are some situations that you kind of laugh at it. And you kind of say, well, that's what they get. And there's some kind of funny things that happen.

But then I think about people that actually do molest children and what they think when they see that. And you can see the fear of God in their eyes when they see Chris Hansen. And they say, oh my goodness, you know, I watched this on TV and now here I am, here I am on the show.

And you could see the fear and how their lives get destroyed by this. They can't get a job. Their careers are ruined. Their families are destroyed. And it's just like, this is like, you think about that.

It's just like, man, can you imagine if that happened to someone you knew? And their lives were destroyed and God made them feel the penalty of their sins in time here, not just eternally. Yes, definitely eternally, but they got their just desserts here in time as well.

And you said, well, that's what they deserved. And you even laughed at some of it, right? You laughed at some of it. You didn't make God your refuge. You can just see the Gospel Coalition people coming out of the workbook.

Well, we shouldn't do that. Well, we shouldn't do that. Fear shouldn't motivate us and things. And it's just not in touch with reality. The Bible says that's not how it works. Psalm 52 says the righteous will see and fear and laugh at him.

Yeah, you had it all going on. You were rich. You were powerful. You were all these things. You were a judge. And then you decided to feed this beast of your illicit desires and you got caught. I think the reality is that, and this is the problem with so much of Gospel Coalition.

I know I've been kind of ranting about Gospel Coalition a lot lately, and I'm sorry if you like it. I'm not trying to say you shouldn't like it. But what I am saying is that there's an imbalance there.

The reason why the social media stuff that they've been putting out lately doesn't move the needle. The reason why that they're losing these games as opposed to how they used to be. They were the gatekeepers.

They were the big dogs. They didn't have any issues. They didn't have to respond to any of us. The reason why that's not the case anymore is because they're just imbalanced on this stuff. The reality is that fear is a motivator.

I hope that pedophiles see to catch a predator and they fear what could happen if they decide to give in to this lust, this abuse desire that they have. I want them to see and fear. Fear is a good motivator.

And so if you share content that makes people angry and fearful, listen, I'm not saying you shouldn't check your heart in anything. Of course, you should always check your heart. But don't let these types of people, Chris Martin, the social media director of Lifeway Researches, which again, that position doesn't qualify him to talk about what Christ-like behavior on social media is.

It just doesn't. I'm sure he's very good at the analytics and stuff like that, but he's not an expert at this. He's telling you, well, you know, just share the beauty of life, share the goodness and righteousness and manifest kindness.

And this is stuff that people already do on social media. The algorithms do reward this stuff. People share encouraging and nice messages all the time. This is just not true at all. But don't feel browbeat by these guys.

If you share things that make people fear, make people fear the Lord, make people want to wonder about what's the end result of sinful lifestyles and rebellion against God. These are completely legitimate things.

I just picked three examples from the Bible that talk about how fear is a motivator, a legitimate one. And you know, guys, if you guys know the Bible, you know that I just picked three random ones. I could have probably picked dozens.

There's dozens of passages like this that talk about fear being a legitimate motivator. Zeal, anger. These are also legitimate. Obviously, we don't want to give into idolatry or give ourselves over to these things.

Of course not. These are legitimate and Gospel Coalition doesn't seem to understand that because they've got this ishy, squishy version of Christianity that they've made up themselves. At the end of the day, love can motivate you to be zealous.

Love can love, love, displaying love can sometimes look like anger to people because when somebody does something to hurt something that you love, sometimes you're going to respond with anger and harshness.

I just, anyway, I think you get my point. I hope that you found this video helpful. I'll see you next time. God bless. Don't forget to tune in next week on Thursday for AD on the Fight Laugh Feast Network.