Echo Chambers and Tribalism: The Pitfalls of Social Media in Christianity

Yeah, I mean, Caleb had done a post about the fact that he has a lot of friends who don't agree with him, something you and I both have.

I mean, you come to conferences where you're kind of the only Presbyterian, and I'm at those same conferences where I'm the only dispensationalist.

We're the odd couple out.

Yes,

that's where we get along.

But that's the thing that Caleb was trying to address, and I actually asked him, I said, hey, can you write a longer – longer article and put it on striving fraternity he said sure and and that's the one that that we have up there it's it's called beyond the echo chamber um it's the latest blog article that's up there and it really is addressing a trend you and i have talked about and been um i guess somewhat upset or despondent overseeing on social media is this this tribalism that we see And look, social media drives us to it.

It does.

you get more attention more likes more clicks bigger platform if you get people following right in line with your echo chamber and that's what i think drives a lot of this and we see we see a lot of people that are just doing things i it seems at least to get attention they post things let me see how how edgy i could be let me see how close to the line i could be And it really, even sometimes looking to cause division within the body of Christ, just to get some clicks or lights.

And I remember, I'm not going to give the name because he's kind of known in some circles, but there was a guy I knew that was saying things about dispensationalism.

And I knew him personally.

So privately, I reached out to him.

I'm like, dude, you know dispensationalists don't believe this.

I mean, this is back in what, 2000 and maybe 2010, 2011 timeframe, maybe even earlier than that.

Facebook was still kind of new for a lot of folks.

And I'm like, you know, dispensationalists don't believe that.

Why are you posting it? He goes, because it gets me likes, it gets me clicks.

And then they'll see other things that I post.

He's using dispensationalism as the chum in the water,

huh? That's exactly what he was doing.

And I went, that was when it hit me that Christians can use social media in an unchristian way.

Because he was being purposely divisive.

for the sake of getting attention.

And I see a lot of that.

I know you do.

It's hard not to if you're going to be on any of the social media.