The existence and effects of networked communication requires us to use that medium. It remains our primary tool of communication, even when the people on the other end are geographically close. This is how people do things in our world and we have to be involved or the gospel has no effect. There are plenty of religions that offer suspicion or even hatred of networked communications in their teachings and rules, but there is no compelling moral reason for avoiding them.
Paul didn’t avoid the Roman roads simply because they were built by slave labor.He was not involved in the slavery and his use didn’t somehow serve to justify the slavery. When you operate from the Spirit Realm, human reasoning about morality is just a silly preoccupation. Our alignment with the Domain of the Spirit changes things. We may well dislike how the Shadowlands reality came to be, but we know that it remains outside of our mission to commit resources to changing what, in essence, Our Father says is His business alone. We are engaged in the business of souls, not politics. We use all things in Creation as mere tools, where we find them and how we find them, as provisions from Our Lord for however much of His business He commits into our hands.
We could easily allow perverted Westernized moral reasoning on all sorts of things keep us from the mission. We could easily invest way too much attention in things that don’t matter and forget things that do. Even if I show you how video, for example, carries moral risks, that’s the not the same thing as making rules against it. It does mean that it’s a very dangerous tool and requires extra care, and my ranting simply reflects how totally careless most people are. Study and pray and make your own decision, but drop the prissy moral pretense and get to work.
With a proper biblical moral awareness, use what’s available. Our primary means of communicating that moral awareness happens to be for most us the Internet. We commune via the Net to build up our moral strength and our meat space mission action. A major threat is the overwhelming presence of perverting influences seeking to hinder our communion in the virtual world. They’ll use every possible distraction to attach your attention to deception.
The very nature of the Internet and our mission prevents us from even considering the idea of suppressing lies. We can provide, at most, a consistent witness to counter them. Consider carefully your individual calling and how the Father intends for you to present your verbal witness on the Web. Consider carefully your talents and ability to face the hideous verbal onslaught from the demons of Hell who find ready tools among the human population of this world. What you communicate on the Net will certainly gain a response, though it will be in measure to the amount of attention or type of attention that you draw. (That’s worth a book on its own.)
The primary areas where you’ll face the worst abuse are discussions about Modern Israel in Bible Prophecy, abortion, and gay rights. The main problem is the militant insistence that if we do not take forceful action to demand some particular political and social solution somebody wants, we are worse than the folks they consider on the other side of the issue. At the very least we have to echo their particular call for action.
That’s problem enough. If you publish comments about those issues anywhere on the Net, you should expect the most unconscionably nasty responses. But if you dare to mention that we should not promote political support of Modern Israel, you may face meat space physical threats or assaults. Back when I served as staff in some Baptist churches, I witnessed fist fights and attended funerals where somebody was shot in petty arguments over church policies, but you haven’t seen anything until you start talking about Israel.
However, the Internet has made it all much easier without the need to get your hands dirty. I have met “Christian” computer technicians who were quite willing to hack your computer and plant juvenile pornography among your files, and then notifying any number of law enforcement agencies. At this point things bleed so quickly over into secular politics, there is essentially no difference. More than one fairly well-known activist has faced this very thing in the past couple of years. The Harlot rides the Beast.
