Virtual Missionaries 3

The Laws of God are the same in all contexts; the primary concern is social stability.
This is an aspect of “love your neighbor” often ignored in Western society. In Hebrew literature and teaching, simple epigrams apply widely. The purpose of prayerful meditation was to see how anecdotes and observable trends fit into revealed truth. The Internet is no different. Your presence on the Net should always meet the mission of loving your neighbor and bringing stability. Don’t make the mistake of thinking God can’t work with electrons to bless people.
Stability is not social regimentation. In the paradox of biblical thinking, stability is constrained chaos — maximum freedom without unnecessary harm. Harm will happen, but we are designed to absorb a certain amount without complaint. The balance between too much and too little freedom is an art of the spirit and requires the soul of shepherd. It requires a fundamental commitment to the agenda of the Spirit Realm, which is always revelation of God’s truth. Truth is expressed in the broadest ways imaginable while still clinging to the Person of God.
So we have no trouble collating God’s Laws with the quintessential explanation of the Internet, World of Ends. Sheeple tend to demand the Net realign itself to their expectations. It’s the same idiocy we experience everywhere we go in this world, everyone utterly convinced the noises inside their own head reflect common sense. We call it “childish” when someone projects their internal traffic onto others as if it were the voice of God. Virtually every human conflict is a demand someone else conform to one’s personal mythology. Such an ego-centered approach is wholly contrary to revelation and serves to pollute the Internet.
The whole of your witness is simplified on the Net, which makes it all the more difficult. On the one hand, your mere presence is as one machine on a network of machines. What makes you a person is distinguishing yourself from the sheeple who abuse everything they touch, trying to make it conform to their perversion of reality. We have trouble enough projecting Ultimate Reality into a broken Shadow Realm without making things worse by getting even the shadows wrong. So your witness on the Net requires that you study to show yourself approved, a netizen who needs not be ashamed.
Make your presence on the Net the smallest possible burden on others while executing the mission.
There are fundamental protocols. Beyond a small measure of flexibility in most of them, violating the shared terms of network protocols will get you blocked. The other machines simply won’t pass on your traffic. It’s the same as not being able to walk in the air; there’s nothing to support your weight. Most hardware and software used on the Internet observes the basic requirements automatically, because they are terribly complicated and you and I would need way too much training and education to use them manually. Still, we should be aware of these things so we don’t follow some knee-jerk reaction seeking to violate them.
On top of this foundation is a lot of unnecessary crap. Most of it is aimed at the sheeple. The degree to which you participate in the garbage depends on your sense of calling for cleaning it up. It should not depend on mere comfort. Don’t look for something that simply makes you happy; reach for what glorifies God. That means you’ll have to prayerfully consider, not simply whether you should have a Facebook account, but every single time you post anything at all, or so much a click that “like” for something. If you can’t make it a statement in favor of His revelation, don’t do it.
You are responsible for every little thing regarding your presence on the Net. If the best you can do is popular sentimental syrupy “Christian” slang and logos echoed from someone promoting a fake Christian advertising image, stay away from the Net. The endless parade of manipulative “how can you not participate” garbage is not a Christian witness. Your witness for the Kingdom is uniquely yours, an expression of how God has touched you. If your best is echoing someone else, you have no witness.
Worse, all that silly stuff is roughly the same thing as spam. It’s junk that consumes resources, clogs the Net, making it difficult for stuff that really matters. It pollutes your witness with low-level idolatry. We will never remove the sheeple from the Net, but that’s no excuse for refusing to rise above their level of operation.
If you aren’t praying every day about your witness on the Net, you are already walking in sin and serving Satan.