Anons and Online Etiquette

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00:25

Welcome once again to the American Churchman podcast. I am your host, John Harris.

00:31

We aim to encourage you as a churchman, probably in the United States, but you might be also listening in other places to glorify

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God in your family, in your community, and of course, in your church. And with us today, we have a special guest.

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Matthew Pearson is not here, but in his stead we have Pastor Jerry Dorris, who is the pastor of Reformation Church in Shelbyville, Kentucky.

00:53

It is a confessionally Baptist church. I have spoken there, and he co -hosts the Snake on the

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Table podcast with Tanner Cartwright. Some of you might've heard that. If you live in the area, please check them out, and thank you for being with us,

01:06

Pastor Dorris. I'm glad to be here, brother. I'm excited. Me too, yeah. We're gonna talk a little bit today about anon accounts, but also just more broadly speaking, online etiquette, which is something that I feel a little bit,

01:21

I don't know, not, I don't wanna say not prepared for it, but just like it's something that's so new that we haven't really figured out what this is yet.

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And so I'm looking forward to hearing some of your thoughts. But maybe just tell everyone a little bit about yourself, because you wrote an article for Truthstripped about this.

01:38

It obviously is an interest for you. It's called, actually, I just had the article pulled up, and now it's gone, so hold on.

01:46

I think it's Appeal to the Man Beneath the Armor. I think that's the title of it. Yeah. All right, I got it up again. And the first line is that you have four anon accounts.

01:55

So maybe some explanation there would be good for everyone to hear. Why do you feel the need to pseudonymously interact online?

02:05

Yeah, so I have had an anon accounts for a very long time, ever since I was a missionary in Turkey, and that was for security reasons, because we were in a restricted access country doing missions work and stuff.

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And so it kind of started in fun and in play to do stuff like that with sending correspondence back and forth to the states about what we were doing and stuff like that.

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And it's just something that kind of stuck with me. And I have done, I use my anon accounts specifically for righteous reconnaissance, as it were.

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So I belong to a number of groups that, it just, it helps me to stay informed about different topics.

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So I can name them, because they'll never be able to find me, but I'm in several LGBT groups.

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I'm in several, what do you call them? Like Wiccan or Christian, Christo -pagan groups and stuff like that, just to kind of do research on the whole topic.

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We as a church have been pretty vocal on those two fronts in Kentucky, and needing to be a part of those groups has been helpful for us to just kind of know what's going on, when an event is going to be happening and how they're reacting to us.

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Often, you'll hear some of those kinds of things. And so we have learned a lot from doing that.

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Is there anything more you'd want to hear about me or you seem frozen to me, so I'll just keep talking.

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Maybe you'll come up here. So yeah, our

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Anon accounts, my Anon accounts are pretty clever, but they're for reconnaissance.

03:54

They're not actually, they're not pushing content. I'm not interacting. There's been a couple of times where I've said something just as an encouragement to continue the conversation, but I haven't had,

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I'm not trying to, there's not an agenda that I'm pushing with anything, especially the kind of stuff that I do and the kind of stuff that we've seen here recently with others.

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John, I'm not sure what's happened here. We've lost you. So it still says that I'm live here.

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I can just keep talking about this particular topic. It's one that, with the thing that just happened with Josh Spice, you're concerned about how things have, how somebody can get to that particular place.

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And I think it's being honest with who you are as a person. So I've just continued to talk, brother.

04:55

I had a couple little pauses. I don't know what happened to me. Wow. Wow. You are a master at this then.

05:01

That's never happened to me that I can recall on a podcast. I just started hearing really loud noises through my headphones.

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You paused and I thought, man, he just said he was infiltrating these LGBT groups and they just shut him down.

05:15

So that must've been on my end. I hope this doesn't happen again. But so anyway, so I heard,

05:21

I think, most of what you were saying there about the reason for having these accounts, which

05:27

I appreciate you sharing. And it seems like there are some valid reasons then. I mean, are there other reasons that you can see, or maybe people in your church would have an anonymous account?

05:37

For security reasons. I mean, I know several Anon people and they have jobs that they would be in jeopardy if their opinions were known, they would be in jeopardy.

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And so that's the, I would say the primary reason. And so whoever their employer is, if they knew the content or the things, especially in our

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DEI culture that seems to have kind of gone away and I've gotten some really good intel on how that stuff's gone away.

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Even we have a buddy in, one of our members works in Toyota, and he says just in the last few months,

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DEI has just evaporated. And he's not one of the Anons, but those kinds of things are happening.

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I don't know, man, maybe you've got some sort of a, some sort of an EMT has gone off in your area and you've lost all your internet coverage or whatever.

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And now I'm the host of the American Church, man. It's exactly what it looks like.

06:42

So obviously protecting your family, protecting your income is important. And so people that have an opinion or want to contribute or communicate something in the modern context, they're gonna wanna have some way to do that without jeopardizing their income or jeopardizing that.

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I would argue that you don't wanna stay in that position. You wanna get yourself into a place where you can match those two worlds.

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Who you are putting forward as who you are is truly who you are, and you don't fear the repercussions.

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So Tanner and myself, we're in that position. We have jobs and we have the security that we have that we don't have to worry about any of those kinds of things because I can say what

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I wanna say and my congregation's not gonna fire me. You might have pastors that have opinions and they can't put those opinions out because they're in fear of their congregation.

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So I can see that, the necessity of that, but I don't think that's an ideal place to be at all for an anon to be duplicitous,

07:55

I guess it were. And so these people that are in different businesses where DEI would be an issue, it's just that they're trying to protect their income.

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Somebody who's duplicitous and having opinions that differ from their online, that's a problem because now it gets into an issue of integrity.

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And I think we need to have integrity for this particular, this arena.

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John has texted me telling me that he's gonna log in with his phone here. And so hopefully we'll have him back any moment.

08:32

I'm trying to think that there's other reasons that are good. I mean, obviously, if you have malicious intent with your anon account, that's problematic because that's antithetical to being a believer because we shouldn't have those types of thoughts.

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We should be forthright. We should let the word of God land. We shouldn't be trying to tear people down or any of those kinds of things.

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It would be my primary argument. And something that I brought out in this article that I've got up on the board here.

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And the whole thrust of that is to be, the man that you're putting forward should match.

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Even if you have an anon account, you still should have your speech peppered with grace.

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It should be salt and light. And salt and light doesn't mean F -bombs and using curse words or the way that we characterize or we do that.

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And sadly, I think we've seen quite a bit of that. I'm concerned on the anon world, which

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I may have a lot of people that I respect that are anon and the ones that I know,

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I know that their actual online anon persona matches their offline persona.

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They may say things a little bolder, but they're still, they're not speaking in an unchristlike way, which is,

10:02

I'm concerned that they're doing that. Anyways, you're back. Yeah, I'm back.

10:07

Can you hear me? Yeah, I can. Yeah, that was really weird. I think an EMT or something's gone off in your area, and you've lost all your internet access.

10:16

I don't know. I had some issues with my computer last week, and I mentioned it on the podcast. And of course, all these computer guys were like, oh,

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I can help you find a new one. But I didn't have any problems to this extent. So maybe the anons have found me, but I don't think they'll find my phone.

10:31

This should work. I heard what you said as you were talking. I was backstage.

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I had to log back into the computer to let my phone in. So now that I'm back,

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I think you make a good point about a right and a wrong use to use anons, because there does seem to be, and I don't know what the percentage is, but it seems like more anons than I'm comfortable with tend to operate without impunity, and they use that license as an opportunity to tear down people that they don't like, and maybe even in sinful ways, say, like you said, profanity, but also just air.

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I mean, there's a term that I won't say, but basically, crap posting, right?

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They just wanna use it as a journal to put all their complaints about the world, and then you find community with others, maybe even in chat groups that you get invited to, people who share your gripes, share your concerns, but it becomes a complain fest, and I've seen this dynamic, and it just discourages people.

11:38

It's not a prudent thing. I don't know, maybe talk about that a little bit, because I am worried for guys who find their quote -unquote encouragement online, but that's the encouragement is what

11:48

I just described. Yeah, I'm making a big assumption here, but I genuinely think that I know all of the anons that are in our church, and our church is roughly 320 or so people, and I know quite a few of them that have anon accounts, and then there's a lot that have just regular accounts, so assuming that I know everybody in there,

12:07

I have heard directly from them as they are part of signal chats and different, offline, but it's still, there's a community that's developed where they're maintaining those, that they're discouraged by the way people speak because that's even rougher than what's happening online.

12:30

Yeah, I don't know if you're familiar with that, but that's what I'm seeing. What's discouraging, so you get somebody online, you post something, anything goes viral, you'll get 100 retweets of something, that happens every once in a while, and then that's when they show up in mass, and then the things they say, and then you click on their profile to go, who's this dude?

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And it's like, Christ is King, Boniface, this or that, and you're like, wait a minute, you just said this in my comments, and I'm like, there's some inconsistencies here.

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Yeah, the thing about it, and this is kind of an odd thing because we haven't had a situation like this in world history that I can think of.

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There's not a parallel to it. Obviously, there's espionage, right? Which is, it's kind of like that would be the parallel to why using a non -account for a good reason is spying, espionage, these are legitimate pursuits in the right context, but not everyone's a spy, right?

13:28

Everyone might wanna be, but not everyone's a spy, and to have just the social life itself, like the public square, be swarmed with people that you don't know, that you can't get to know, you have no connection, you don't know what they're connected to, you don't know how they're managing their household, you don't know really a thing, they could be from another country, they could be a different gender than they're portraying.

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Yeah. I don't know that that's ever really happened. The closest thing I can think of is in France, those masquerade parties where you show, but people kind of still know who the people are.

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Well, you know if you're male or female, hopefully, you know, by looking at it. Right, yeah, you know at least that. This is less than that.

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And that's one of the things I've wondered is, what's the social effect on a broad scale of this when you have so many people operating anonymously, you can't get to know them that way really.

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It's very hard to at least. There's so many barriers there, but they can say whatever they want.

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And so in an environment like that, if you're trying to find your people, quote unquote, it's not going to be based on shared interests or shared region or any of the tangible things that actually bind us together.

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No. It's going to be, we have the same complaints or something like that. That's at least what

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I'm seeing is people sort of fall into these categories of, they have similar political views, but even more than that, they have a similar rambunctious attitude perhaps.

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And that's the thing that I think I'm seeing that I'm like, you know, I'm for anonymity, allowing it because of the first reason you said, like the

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Federalist Papers and those guys use anonymous pseudonyms, but for a good purpose.

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And so what do you do as a, you're a pastor, what do you do since you know guys in your church who are also having on -accounts?

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If you start seeing someone go in this direction, how do you identify it? How do you help shepherd someone through that?

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Yeah. I mean, I also, I'm cautious. I don't want to become that guy that's overly looking over their shoulder.

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I've had very, I have had very specific situations where people have said certain things and I go to them and I'll screenshot it and I'll send it to them.

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I'm like, what was that? And then they'll take it down. I've had that happen multiple times. We've got three anons right now that are taking a break.

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They're not on. And I think that's helpful for them. And that's not, that's just, maybe that's generated by me and Tanner and others is we've encouraged people to have a consistent, you know what, here's the thing, we want to build and we're pushing the idea of building and building your family and building your work and being a pillar in the church and having an influence in your local community and stuff.

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So these are the big pushes that we're having. Well, that's not really accomplished online.

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There's no real community. It's all faux. It's all, it's not real. And it can go away in a moment.

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You say the wrong thing in some of these groups and suddenly your, the attention's against you.

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And so my challenge to them has just to build real things, actually work on your marriage, actually work on this, work on that, you know, get out of the company.

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Let's take your skillset and let's turn that into a business. So we're very pro -entrepreneurial, you know, here.

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And so I'm gonna encourage real things that they can have pride in and then it's truly who they are and not something that, having pride in the fact that you've got 10 ,000 followers on Twitter is just so, it's vapor, it's nothing.

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I know, I know. Yeah, and I think there's a temptation to think that we memed ourselves into the

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White House, right, that I hear that so much. We memed ourselves into the White House. We did it. We're the ones that are producing real change by, before it was the left bullying and canceling people.

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And now we get to use this tool to get our guys into spots that are advantageous and to rip down those that we don't like.

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And I'm a little suspicious of that. I don't, I mean, skeptical that that's actually accomplishing a lot.

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Like we, you can't deny the fact that Elon Musk buying Twitter helped President Donald Trump.

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Whether it gave him the election, I don't know, but it certainly helped him, right? Yeah. But I think of especially a young guy who's starting out, who let's say doesn't have a long record on social media of his views.

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And he decides he's gonna do an Anon account and then just really air everything.

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If that gets doxxed, which that happens at times, then he may be disqualified at a lower stage from ever wielding actual power to love neighbor and to, but if he channels that effort into something like building a business, like you said, or running for local office, or I don't know, something productive in the real world, it seems to me like that's usually more prudent.

18:39

And I don't know. I mean, even with the, in the Christian quote -unquote nationalist circles, how many guys have run for office is something

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I've been thinking about lately. Cause we have like Dusty Devers, but he's the one name that always comes up. It's like, oh, we got Dusty Devers.

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But like, oh my God, that's great. I love Dusty Devers. Dusty Devers was a businessman in his community and people knew him.

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That's how he got the position he was in. And that's, I'm convicted of this myself, getting involved in local community, local church.

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It just seems that's the, if a non -account can serve that, which is how you're using it, my non -account serves my local involvement, it can be good.

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But if it's not serving that, then you have to question, okay, what's the purpose then of using it?

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So one of the things that I got a comment from someone who said that they don't think pastors should have a non -accounts and implied that this was for more immature people, that if you have authority, you shouldn't have an account.

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And I countered back, I said, and I'd be curious what you think of this Pastor Doris. I said, actually, I think pastors and people who are more mature, let's say, are probably the prime people who should have a non -account.

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Like I would trust them more with that tool cause it's a powerful tool. You can ambush than someone who doesn't have wisdom, right?

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So it actually takes more wisdom, I think, to operate one of those accounts, not less. I mean, what do you think of that? Well, we would say that until last week with Josh Blythe and the

20:02

Sunday Press. Oh, I know, well, there we go. Warms it up. I know, I know. That's kind of why we're having this conversation.

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Yeah, I just, yeah, I can see that, but what are they afraid of?

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Why not have their real account and be who they really are as a pastor? Would be my pushback to that.

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Yeah, unless, and when you were offline here, I mentioned it, so I'm not sure you heard of it. If you're afraid of your congregation, like your congregation's gonna know your actual true views and you're concerned about that,

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I could see that for sure. But our lives should match our words.

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And the more that our lives and everybody can look and verify that you're who you are, it lands with such greater thud.

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You know what I mean? It's just, it has so much more impact if it's truly you. If it's just some

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Anon who's got just a few followers and he follows a thousand people, and who cares what he says?

21:06

Yeah. But it means something if I say something because of my position and my place in the community and people know me.

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So if I say, hey, this is wrong or this is right or this is good, now people listen and really it emboldens the congregation.

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And so I guess I wouldn't be, I can see a context where you need to do it, but I would argue maybe really evaluate the reason why you would want that as a pastor, because I think you're gonna have greater impact with your voice.

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Your voice is gonna be louder if it's you saying something. Yeah. Yeah. And I think of all the

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Proverbs about a good name and how prized that is. You can't really build a good name if you're not using your name, right?

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You're building an avatar or a profile or some kind of a brand, but there is a difference between that and then having a good name that actually your kids get to inherit and your church gets to benefit from and those kinds of things.

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So pour your energy into that, to real tangible things like that. I wanted to get, go ahead.

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I was gonna say, I know in my context, we get this on the regular here, just from Snake on the

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Table, our Twitter accounts and stuff like that. When I say something, I actually,

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I remember when I'm reminded by my congregation when they say, hey, you said this and that was really important to me.

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It emboldens my church. It equips them. They now know how to deal or handle or talk about a particular topic that they hadn't thought about before.

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And so that's why I like that I can do that. If a pastor's out there, his congregation doesn't know who he is and that he's done this and so he's not having that outside of the pulpit impact that he should be having on his congregation.

23:00

Right, no, that's a really, really good point. And I hadn't thought of that before we started the podcast. I'm gonna get to some questions.

23:07

So if those who are listening, I know we have a bunch of people streaming. If you have questions or comments on any of this, please put it in the channel and I will get to them.

23:18

There's not a lot yet, but I wanted to maybe shift the conversation a little bit to just online ethics and how we interact online in general, whether or not or not.

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One of the things that I've realized just being in the podcast world is there is this unspoken code of how

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I should, I guess, carry myself. If someone's a guest on my podcast, for example, it is kind of like they're a guest in my home and I am expected to treat them a certain way, give them some deference, let them talk, hear their thoughts.

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And this is something that's developed over time, obviously, as the online world has existed.

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But I think we're still in development and scripture obviously has to apply to this though.

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So I don't know if you have thoughts on what are some of the things, I mean, maybe some of the pitfalls too that people get into operating online that maybe we wouldn't tolerate it.

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And like if you met someone at church or met someone in the community or met someone at a conference, should you treat them the same or different as opposed to meeting them in the comment thread, that kind of thing.

24:32

I think we're definitely more aggressive online and especially when we don't know people, there's just a natural aggression that comes up and then that's only exacerbated by anonymity.

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But we as Christians are always to have, our speech is always to be graceful.

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It's always to be edifying. That doesn't mean that we aren't salty and we say things that are pointed and they get to the point, and they're upsetting the things that we say, but the words that we're choosing to say, we're just making sure that they're graceful.

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I think about, I know, and he's old and stuff like that, but like Joel Beeky, how is he gonna interact with somebody who's being just salty or whatever?

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He's still gonna be gracious with him in his response. I have, if you follow my social media from,

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I think I opened a Facebook account in 2008 or something like that, that's when I had one.

25:34

If you follow that, I've tried to be gracious, but there's definitely been times that you get into it with people and you go farther than you should.

25:45

And so I think owning that, having a transparency, that's something that I've wanted to do.

25:52

And maybe this is what you get, I'll give you one big one. And this may be really salty for your crowd here.

25:59

I don't know who follows this, but I don't engage with women online. I just have stopped.

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This, it doesn't matter who they are. It's a no -win situation for me to go at it with somebody.

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Now, if I know the person, like if it's a lady in my congregation, then I will answer those things.

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But if it's somebody I don't know, I don't engage in that because even if they ask me a question and it's not like the

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Mike Pence thing or anything, it's just a no -win situation. If you argue with a woman online, either you're beating her or you're being beat by her.

26:36

And that's a no -win situation. Right, yeah, both are bad. Yeah, yeah,

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I've heard other guys. I think Aidy Robles does that too, if I'm not mistaken. He just won't engage with females.

26:47

And I think there's different, obviously different online platforms that people conceive of differently.

26:53

So Twitter, some people think is a war zone. So you're supposed to go in there with a battle -hardened attitude.

26:58

But it seems silly to me a little bit. I mean, I've had guys argue this. Because usually the appeal is, look what

27:07

Jesus did in the temple. Look how Jesus talked to the Pharisees. And I recognize that. But I'm thinking like, brother,

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I don't, you don't really do that though in real life. That's the thing. Like I, sometimes, you're timid.

27:19

You're not trying to take, or not take, but cultivate a situation that would allow you to take leadership in your church or that kind of thing and get into positions where you can be authoritative and speak in those ways.

27:35

And maybe that's the difference. And I don't wanna sound like, I mean, I guess maybe

27:40

I'm getting older now, but I'm not, you know, I'm a middle -aged guy. I'm younger middle -aged. I'm not pining for the good old days before the internet.

27:48

I actually think the internet can be a good tool. I'm just saying that there does seem to be some social restrictions.

27:57

You just don't do certain things. You don't air all the things that you think of when you're in public.

28:02

Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that actually helps you have self -control to have that social pressure on you. You know, when you are in a social setting and you don't conceive of it as a war zone, you actually do look at it as a social setting, you tend to operate with more respect.

28:18

But if you think as soon as you log in, it's a war zone and you don't have to jump through any of the normal hoops that it would take to be a general, you can play a general, right?

28:28

And that's, I guess, maybe the other thing that I'm sensing it. I don't know how to articulate it well, but that the social mores and the hierarchies and ranks in society are somewhat broken down when you go online.

28:42

And I don't know that that's a good thing either. Yeah, you can quote tweet or go directly at the

28:49

Pope right now. Yeah. He's got a Twitter account and amazing access that you have.

28:55

I think Twitter, well, it has the combativeness of that.

29:00

It rewards spice. The spicier you are, you'll get the likes, you'll get it.

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If you just put something up like a scripture quote or something like that, or some insight from the word of God that you've gotten from your studies and it's beneficial, that is gonna get no responses.

29:21

Right. It doesn't do that. But if you do the exact same post and you put it on Facebook, you'll get all the likes and the hearts and the conversations.

29:30

It's just, it rewards, so Facebook rewards intuition and thoughtfulness and meaning and Twitter, X, I keep saying

29:40

Twitter, X, it rewards combat. It does. So I guess that's why it feels more warrior when you go into it.

29:50

Right, yeah. Yeah, sometimes I look at conversations on there and I think, man, if we didn't have these online barriers, would we be shooting guns at each other?

29:59

Would this be an actual war? I mean, it feels like that. But I do wanna get to some questions and comments.

30:05

So I'm gonna just check out what we got here. Not a Calvinist. Okay, well, we have someone who's not a

30:10

Calvinist. They want people to know this. It says, and I think this is an anon. This has been a needed as an honest, useful and oftentimes convicting talk concerning the issue of anons on X.

30:21

So thank you, not a Calvinist. I really appreciate that. And I think, I mean, there's so much more

30:27

I think we could say, maybe we will, but I think we're just scratching the surface. This is such a conversation, needed conversation, but one that is in development.

30:38

Bob from Canada. So we've got Bob. You've got a lot of anons on the account today.

30:43

Your real name means nothing to those 1000 miles away on the internet judged based on substance. I'd advise my kids to be anon if they ever go online.

30:52

Oh, that's an interesting, maybe you talked about this when I was logged off or whatever, but when it comes to children operating online for the protection of children, maybe that,

31:05

I don't know. I tend to think that I wouldn't want my kids online at all if they have to use an anon.

31:10

That's just my gut, but maybe that protects them. Yeah, I mentioned this a couple of, and this maybe gets in a totally different topic, but I find that as a man, the

31:21

X, the imagery and the stuff that it gets on the for you there that it gives you, that's where most of my sensuality is provoked in there.

31:34

So I've recently got into my settings and I turned off all photos. I don't see any photos.

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So I will click, if you post something, I'll see that it'll have a tag that there's a photo there and I know it's you, so I'm gonna click it and see what you post, what you had there, it just immediately pops up.

31:51

But I don't think kids should be on X because of that. It's just, there's too much,

31:58

I don't think they have, it depends on who they are, but most of the kids that I know don't have the ability to be on there.

32:05

So I wouldn't have them on there. I guess he's concerned about predators going after them. Is that -

32:10

I'm assuming, yeah. Yeah, which I mean, I get that. That's interesting because it's gotten better on X, but it does seem like there's, every once in a while,

32:21

I still come across like semi -pornographic material if not pornographic. And yeah, it's a difficult thing to maneuver.

32:28

We have this world and I mean, a lot of parents I see give their kids cell phones because they think, well, I want to know where you are.

32:34

I want you to be able to call me at very young ages. And you're giving them though, something that obviously they can take and then use for all kinds of sinful activities, including that.

32:46

Let's see what other comments we have. Alex Barry says he literally just blocks all women.

32:54

So you just, that's one way to do it, I guess. Block all women. So do you see what

33:02

I mean? It's a lot worse, especially on X, they're really bad. Especially the reformed trolls, the ones that troll the reformed world, they're really bad.

33:11

Yeah, I don't know. I'm not, I'm sort of in that. I don't know what it is, you know. I watch it go after Web and there's some people that, some ladies are just obsessed after Joel Webber.

33:21

Oh my gosh. And they have like, what's going on here? Yeah, it's like they make it their personal job to go after them.

33:29

And I don't know, it's convicting maybe when someone says that you're in sin and they just want to get one up on you.

33:35

I don't know. I don't know. Well, Jerry Doris did not say to do that, but if that's what you need to do, block all women.

33:43

Okay. Let's see. Bob again says,

33:48

I pretty much only troll the Theo bros. So because the bad ideas being promoted from Moscow, the

33:55

Moscow, Moscow was detrimental to our local church. So, you know, Bob, I don't know who you are, but I would just say you might want to let that go.

34:05

I'm just saying. I don't know all the particular circumstances of what happened to your church. Maybe it's a bad story, but there's no way to get back at people really.

34:16

Whatever happened to your church, let's just assume it was really bad. Going online and using an Anon to go after it.

34:22

Like, I'll give you an example. If there was a story, let's say someone, we'll take it out of the realm of Moscow.

34:29

Let's just say another group or whatever. Some hypothetical. Some group goes after you and they're a threat.

34:35

They're a threat to other churches because they've done something to your church. The best thing you can do is probably put a little meat on the bones and let people know exactly what happened so that they know what to watch out for.

34:45

If you are a nameless, faceless person without much of a following likely because you're an

34:51

Anon, it may feel good to post about those things and to go after them, but how many people can actually benefit from the experience you had?

34:58

They can't even verify the experience. They don't know where it happened. So I guess that's a point

35:04

I want. I'm not telling you, Bob, to go after anyone, but I'm just saying, if you're using an Anon, that's, I don't know that it helps that much.

35:11

Just my two cents. Well, I'll wait for some more questions to get in here.

35:16

Maybe we can keep talking just a little bit about, okay, Bob disagrees. He says his testimony is posted on the channel.

35:22

Okay, I haven't seen it, so I'd have to see it. Maybe we can talk a little bit about online etiquette a little bit more too.

35:31

So treating people the way that you want to be treated, using respectful language, even online,

35:37

I think it does make you stand out as someone, well, you said the reformed people are trolling and so forth, but I think hopefully as a

35:44

Christian, our speech is peppered with salt or seasoned with salt.

35:52

And so that is one of the things that I've tried to, maybe I'm not perfect at it, but I've tried to implement is if I wouldn't say it to the person's face,

36:01

I'm not gonna say it online. And that means I gotta be brave in person too.

36:09

That forces me to be brave in person or just to not say it at all. Maybe it's something not worth saying, right?

36:17

That's one of the rules that I know I've tried to live by. Another one is making any kind of jokes really.

36:26

Jokes are harder online. So this is another thing that I've, I'm not the best at this either, but it is a dynamic.

36:32

I've tried to factor into my own online activity. Because you don't see someone's facial expression and you don't hear their tone of their voice, something you write can be taken 10 different ways.

36:47

And I have to try to, if I can, assume the 10 ways they can be taken and then make my communication as clear as I can, which is difficult when you talk as much as I do online.

36:58

But that's another rule that I've tried to implement is assuming before I post, how can this be taken wrong?

37:05

And sometimes you can't help it. People are just gonna take you out of context and all that, but at least attempting, and humor's very difficult, so I don't know how many times

37:14

I've had a joke or something that I thought was funny and I just clicked delete. It happens probably once every two or three days.

37:22

Like I just, you know what? I just don't, in person this might be funny, it might make sense, but online, someone might take it wrong, right?

37:30

Yeah. Are there any other things like that that you, rules that you use to govern your online activity?

37:35

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm conscientious about those kinds of things. I recognize I wanna be pastoral.

37:42

I don't wanna say anything that's gonna kinda ruin my, you know, I'm cautious.

37:48

I'll often sit on a tweet or some post, I'll have it, I use, on my iPhone,

37:54

I use the notes thing, you know, I'll just post it there. I'm also a stickler. I want it to be perfect,

38:00

I don't wanna have a typo, so I'm really, you know, really careful about that. One of the things I'll do, because I have

38:07

Tanner, Tanner's probably not the best person to throw stuff to, because he's like, yeah, yeah, do it, do it, do it.

38:14

Everything you think to do, he's like, yeah, go, bomb's away. But we do have a group called the

38:21

Twits and Tweets that Tanner and a few other guys that, if I named them, you know who they were, that I'll post something,

38:27

I'll say, hey, I'm thinking about this, what do you guys think about this? Or I got this situation, should I respond to this?

38:34

And you know, they'll tell me, no, yeah, let that one go, let this. And so that's been helpful to have just a governor or a little group to do that.

38:45

Sometimes it's quick and it's fast and it's not, you know, I don't have time to think about that.

38:51

And usually when I do this, I have some sort of a typo. But I'm just driven by this idea of let your speech always be with grace.

39:01

I just, I want that. And I fail at that at times. Or Pete, this is really coming true, even just this last, in the last two days.

39:12

I can't keep people from slandering me. I can't keep people from misunderstanding me or maliciously taking something that I've said and tweeting it out or, you know, we just did a podcast,

39:27

I'll give you an example, fresh today, where we were in our, in the

39:32

Hall of Fire and there was a few men that were smoking pipes in there. I wasn't, I do smoke a pipe, but we were in there.

39:40

And in this video, and one of the guys, so somebody had screenshot that and then had quoted me.

39:48

And the quote was, you know, smoking a pipe is not masculine. You know, I know my wife doesn't smoke a pipe.

39:54

I know some of your wives smoke cigars. It was a joke. Well, they took that and they made that into a big deal.

40:03

You know, and I can't help people from taking, you know, doing stuff like this.

40:09

Like, I don't know, you're right. Humor, those things are, you gotta be really cautious about that. And there's certain things you can say in mixed company or not mixed company, you can't say in mixed company.

40:20

Yeah. And when you're online in a public forum, you always have to assume it's mixed company. Yeah. You can't just assume.

40:26

Well, I didn't even mean that in any kind of a bad way. I mean, it was just, it was a joke their wife smoking, you know, not anything other than that, so.

40:34

No, I understand. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I'm, I guess I'm saying yes and amen.

40:40

And also you don't know who's watching, I guess. And you have to assume that everyone, anyone can watch what you're saying.

40:47

And that's a hard thing because you think you're in your little corner of the internet with your buddies and it's like you're hanging out together and no one's watching, but they are, or they could be.

40:57

And so you have to be aware online. Maybe that's an added incentive for guys to get together.

41:04

You've got to have a thick skin to be on online, I think. And any, whenever you put your opinion, if you're just a lurker and you're following and that kind of stuff, but if you're actually putting out opinions, you better have a thick skin because you're going to get, you know, people are going to take you out of context.

41:18

If they know who you are, they're going to take you out of context. And maybe this is one of the reasons to be anon is who cares if they, if somebody takes you out of context?

41:25

Well, it matters for me because if they screenshot that and they put it in a local group, but all of a sudden

41:31

I've got, and this has happened, and I've had people, members of our church come up and say, hey, what about this? Like, oh, that's not what

41:36

I said. Here's, here's what actually happened. Well, if they hadn't come to me, I wouldn't have known. If they had received slander and let that fester, then that hardens them.

41:46

So it can affect other people. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's helped your character too, having to own everything you say.

41:53

Because on judgment day, God's not going to care if you have an anon. He knows. He knows every tweet and who

41:59

I was. Yeah. You're not following him. So a fear of God, I think, is maybe at the base of a lot of this.

42:05

Yeah. Vera Tax says, just because someone replies to a social media message doesn't mean you have to reply either.

42:15

Sometimes it's - I agree with that. Sometimes it's obvious the other person is not capable of understanding your point of view and understanding, or is unwilling to do anything, but waste your time.

42:23

A hundred percent. I agree with that. I'm a failure at this. This is the worst. I totally agree.

42:30

And I have a lot of - You still respond. I have my inbox full.

42:36

Someone yesterday, and I realize we're online, so I'm going to take my own rule that I said and be delicate about this, but someone wanted marriage advice.

42:44

And it was of a delicate nature, we'll say. And even that, like,

42:50

I felt that burden too. Oh, this poor guy, I should get involved. And I don't have time for it.

42:56

I'm not the guy's pastor. So I told him that. I said, you need to honestly, if you don't have a pastor, you need to find a pastor. I can't be your pastor.

43:04

But my heart does go out and I want to correct things and help people. And these are all noble things, but you were amending it more than I was.

43:14

So maybe expand on that. Why do you think that's such a good point? Well, I mean, first off, people say stupid things constantly and or misunderstand you or willfully misunderstand you or try to say something.

43:26

One, if it's blown up, Tanner just had what was like 6 .3 million views for an ex post.

43:34

And there's just no way. I mean, you can pick and choose. So the

43:39

Holy Nope goes to our church as well, Austin Keeler. And Austin has this same thing. We've talked a lot about this, especially when something blows up.

43:49

So every post he puts out there, there are literally thousands of comments if you multiply all the platforms that he's on.

43:57

I think on, I forget, it's on TikTok, he's like 600 ,000 followers or something like that.

44:03

Wow. There's just no way. There's just no way to respond to that. Now in my little world, and I put something out there and I get whatever it is and people respond.

44:15

I've just stopped. I purposely just, it's peace for my soul. One, I don't have time.

44:20

I just don't have time to respond to everybody. This is what he said is absolutely right.

44:27

It's just a big, it's a big help for me. I often will just like, okay, and put it away, even though it's gnawing at me.

44:34

Yeah, in seminary, this was one of the things that my professors sometimes are very optimistic about was look at all the ministry we can do now using the internet.

44:42

It just expands the reach and the potential. And I'm now very skeptical of this.

44:48

I don't know that it, I think you can do good things online. I'm not saying you can't, but man, it's so easy for someone to send you a message about their problems and want counsel.

45:02

And normally the people who are going to change are the ones who are going to actually come to the office or make the appointments and have some stake in the game.

45:15

So Veritax also followed up, said, the other thing is, even if you think you are doing good by contending for the faith, how much energy are you putting into it?

45:24

Ever spend time on social media and look up and three to four hours are gone. Yeah. Never happens. Yeah, never happens.

45:30

Never happens. This is, I mean, we don't have to get into that specific issue here perhaps, but it could be any issue.

45:39

Not a Calvinist says it's been heartbreaking, disturbing and surprising the trend of almost normalizing a foul narrative on race,

45:45

Hitler sympathizing in hatred with many Anons on X. How did we get here? And maybe

45:50

I'll reframe the question just a little bit. It does seem like there's a shock value online that can desensitize your conscience.

45:58

I've noticed this myself. So more extreme ideas or maybe extreme is not the best word, just shocking things, shock jock type activity that is very much rewarded online.

46:13

That's going to come across your screen. That's what everyone wants to see is the more shocking, the more edgy, the more you're going to see it.

46:20

And that desensitizes you and makes you, I think for me, it is probably in ways

46:26

I don't realize changed maybe the way I think about things. And maybe even my own speech, it normalizes things that were not normalized before.

46:36

And that changes the boundaries of social acceptability. And I know the guys doing it, some of them, wait, that's what they want to do.

46:43

Yeah. But is that good for us to constantly be exposing our minds to the most edgy and sensational topics and videos and things?

46:55

Probably not. That's probably not a good thing. So anything you want to add to that?

47:01

Well, I mean, just on the topics that she mentioned, some of those things are really pertinent for us to talk about.

47:06

I know it's uncomfortable to talk about those things. I haven't delved into the

47:11

Hitler side of it, but we even just did an episode today on the issue of race. And it's important, especially post -1965 and how the world has been conceived.

47:24

And white male, we've been under attack for decades now and we feel guilty for being who we are and those kinds of things.

47:37

And so that's actually, it's a relevant topic. And it's one reason it's so popular is because it resonates with so many men.

47:45

And so, and honestly, a lot of the men that are on Twitter are going to be in this category. And so that's why

47:51

I think that's a popular thing. I think the other thing that's questioning the

47:57

Holocaust and all that kind of nonsense, that goes along with it.

48:04

There's kind of a spectrum there, I think is what I hear you saying. Because there's a legitimate, I mean, that's been my platform since what, 2019 or whatever, kicking back against the woke stuff.

48:14

And there's discussions you do need to have. If they're happening online, at least they're happening somewhere.

48:20

And hopefully the more prudent voices will be heard by the people that need to hear them. But that's the thing.

48:27

There's no reward system online that will elevate the more prudent voices generally. It is usually the flamethrowers who want to take advantage of these serious topics that need to be discussed and do so in ways that just rage bait and that kind of thing.

48:44

I'll plug your book for you. But we purchased 15 copies of your book.

48:50

And so last night, as we go through your book, we've stalled on chapter five, but just because there's so much in that particular chapter and that was pretty helpful.

49:00

But after we were done talking, so we're talking about these things. We're talking about nationality and race and these kinds of things, but it's an open conversation.

49:08

And after it was over, one of the young men, this was like the second time he's come, he just said, that was so awesome to be able to actually talk about it.

49:17

We don't ever talk about it. Nobody talks about this. I can't talk about these things. And I think that real connection actually builds real bonds and real community and real trust.

49:29

And then he's in the military. He just got in there. So he was talking about an older gentleman who is in the military as well.

49:35

And they were just comparing notes and he was getting counsel on that girl. Like, man, this is so awesome. And it was because of your book that we're gathering.

49:43

Well, thanks for sharing that. Hey, can we see a copy of your book? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

49:48

There it is. Yeah. And all credit goes to the person who designed the cover,

49:54

Jerry Doris. That is a fantastic design. I have to say. Yeah, so you can, yeah.

50:00

But no, in all seriousness for those listening, Jerry did, Pastor Doris did help design that and format it and everything.

50:07

I don't know how you work, but you were much quicker than I thought you were gonna be. So you just,

50:13

I get the impression you do. You put in like a 15 -hour day and just crank out. Yeah, I'm productive.

50:18

I'm a productive guy. But I warned you, I don't read the books that I work on until I read them afterwards.

50:26

You assume that I read your book. I know, I thought so. I feel like he went and formatted every page. He must have somehow digested it.

50:32

So, you know, I'm actually thinking of doing a Sunday school or something at my church regarding the book so that I can put out maybe a study guide for people.

50:44

Not that you need it. I mean, what are you guys doing? Just asking questions that - Yeah, we just walked through a recent, you know, whatever you've highlighted, we'll stop and we'll talk about the content of it.

50:53

Yeah. Okay. That's all. Yeah. It's either, I've done it, a couple other guys who just kind of walked through with us.

51:01

Yeah, it's really good that you're actually doing that. I don't know a lot of people. There's another church I know that I think is about to start using the book for that purpose.

51:08

And even just sitting down with guys and talking about things that are controversial like race.

51:14

I mean, these are things that you do have to navigate. The Bible does have things to say on it. And if they don't come to you, if you're not having those conversations, where are they gonna go?

51:24

Yeah. They will go online and who knows what they're gonna find there, so. I will tell you this, is that, so we, this group that we meet with on Monday nights, we, so we have sermon session beforehand.

51:35

So they chop up whoever preached. So that's usually my sermon, they're chopping up. And then we go through how to form propositions and all that stuff.

51:41

So we're teaching people how to look at the text. And then we moved to the book, but we've been doing Herman Boving's Reform Dogmatics.

51:48

So we're in chapter two. And so we decided to do something, some light reading. And that was your book.

51:53

So I don't know if that offends you at all, but Boving and Harris are just not the same.

52:00

I'm a dum -dum compared to Boving, so. We all are too, looking at them like, meh.

52:06

Yeah, well, I know after I read anything from the 19th century or, you know, even the 20, well, early 20th century,

52:16

I, that wasn't that long ago, but I feel dumb. Just the normal course. And then that's another thing about online stuff too.

52:21

And I don't know that we can stop it, but the language develops or devolves, I should say, so quickly in online discourse.

52:29

You can pick up the slang one week and it's changed the next week. And you might still be saying based.

52:35

And now I've been told that that's old people say based. Imagine being at 55 and trying to keep up.

52:41

I know. It doesn't happen. You shouldn't even try. Keyed is the thing now.

52:46

I think maybe that's old now, but yeah, you get keyed into things. I'm like, keyed? Okay, keyed. Okay.

52:52

All right, that's the word. But W .T. Henry makes a good point. He says, I think people get triggered online when they don't have a solid worldview.

53:00

Any challenge to those people's worldview upsets the apple cart. That could be. I think, yeah, that could be.

53:06

And online isn't, on social media comment threads, it is probably not the best place to build a worldview or a philosophy of life.

53:16

It's better to have some, obviously the Bible, but also solid Christian books. So you can -

53:21

Just read people. Read. Read. Listen to books. Tanner, because of his job,

53:28

I mean, he literally logs thousands of hours and he can just listen because he's just hammering and moving posts and stuff.

53:34

It's a good book thing. I walk in the morning and I listen to books. That's how

53:41

I push through books more than any other time. That's just when I do it.

53:46

But I would encourage people to read. That's a good use of technology. Yeah. Well, we've been going over 15 minutes.

53:53

So unless anyone has any questions, I think we can maybe summarize this. And are there any resources you want to push anyone toward that would help them more on this,

54:03

Pastor Doris? No? I can't think of any. Well, where can people go to find your sermons or since you do publishing, your books that you put out there?

54:16

Yeah. So I give you a couple of links here. First off, our podcast that Tanner and I do is snakeonthetable .com.

54:23

And so you can go there and they can find us on YouTube, just searching Snake on the Table. And then that's on all the different platforms.

54:30

Our church is refchurch .com, which stands for reformationchurch .com. And there

54:35

I blog there. I also have a sub stack that I've started to this year where I'm starting to put some more articles out, writing a little bit more.

54:44

So those are where people can find me. Okay, excellent. Well, this was a really good discussion.

54:50

I think it's gonna help a lot of people. And I appreciate you trucking on, even when I was having demons in my computer that have not made their way to my phone, thank

54:59

God. I appreciate that. And yeah, I would advise people who are listening, who have more questions, check out those resources.

55:08

They're really good. I was on the famous Snake on the Table podcast just two months ago,