“Gotcha” Culture and That Sick Feeling in My Soul

My blog writing has gone wonky.

Not funny wonky like the wonky donkey but like John Bunyan’s pilgrim up to his knees in a mucky bog wonky.

I love words and the light they can be in this darkness but we’re living through some inky black times. Sometimes the darkness swallows my words before they even form. 

With a book releasing, I’m on line more than I like to be. This isn’t good for my soul. As I read, prickly burrs attach to my spirit. My hands weigh heavy on the keyboard. My spiritual eyes milk over, and rather than write, I retire to my room away from all the screens and just  lean my head against God’s chest listening to His heart beat through His Word.

Too much time looking through the window of the Internet chokes my creativity and hijacks my humor.

What’s paralyzing me lately is “gotcha” culture.

It’s not the greatest concern, for sure, but more like the proverbial straw breaking the camel’s spine of my writing spirit. I’m first weighed down by wars, politics, church division, rampant defiance of God, and the end of civilization as we know it but I don’t want to keep you here all day.

Probably the senseless deaths of children, the threat of nuclear invasions from space, the racism, antisemitism, and rise of hatred for Christians has made me overly sensitive but the thrill many Christians apparently feel at finding fault with brothers and sisters on line–pointing out with great pomp and elaborate detail that a song or meme or comment or source or quote or thought is errant or to the left of right or too strident or too soft or too dogmatic or not adhering closely enough to the truth or not being sensitive enough to culture well, this is just putting me over the edge.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in standing up for truth but Paul (who understood all too well the dangers of self-righteousness) wrote, “Brothers and sisters, even if a person is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual are to restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you are not tempted as well.” (Galatians 6:1)

Gentleness is not what I’m witnessing. Gentleness and humility don’t appear to rule the day. Instead what we too often witness is unkindness, cruelty, unproductive, Pharisaical, unbiblical “gotcha” culture.

Look, this is a problem for me because it’s a 24/7 effort involving full-on Holy Spirit intervention and the open-throttle engagement of my own denial of self to hold a pillow over the face of my own inner Pharisee.

I mean, I’ve repented of feeling superior to others but a little time on the internet is like tossing slabs of raw meat at the lion of self-righteousness I’m trying to starve. There are brothers and sisters out there setting truly low bars. Especially when the truth is that I am not better than anyone else and can easily be dragged along by the current of “gotcha” culture. 

God does not call us to troll other Christians. If what a brother or sister has shared is contrary to God’s Word, be gentle and kind in instruction.

I need Jesus. I have no righteousness of my own. I am easily tempted to love the world, to compromise truth, to be too strident when I do share it, or to yield to my old nature. You don’t want to know me without Jesus and with the drag of deception and the pull of popularity powerful currents in our culture, I know my only hope is Him.

So, let me tell you about my God.

He sees what is wrong with us better than any of us ever do. And yet, He walked among us humbly, gently, bravely daring to speak the truth to our faces–not typing it from the other side of a screen.

When sinners came to Him acknowledging their need for salvation, He welcomed them, ate with them, and told them stories about the kingdom of God. When they got things wrong or were slow to understand, He corrected them, restored them, and taught them again. He continually invited them into His greater story.

When the self-righteous resisted Him He was pointed, direct, and articulate in describing their sins. He told them stories of coming judgement and called them to abandon their own righteousness for one that was greater, one that was eternal, one that they couldn’t earn but only receive from Him. He was most forceful with the self-righteous and those seeking salvation from idols, from worldly means, and from self.

But to those who followed Him, He was persistently patient, gentle, instructive, and kind. The only “gotcha” Jesus displayed was “I gotcha covered with my own body and blood.” 

I pull away again and again from the relentless ocean of headlines and memes, of Facebook debates and mean tweets, not because I’m above it all but because it calls to the parts of me that are still in the process of becoming like Jesus. It’s too easy to try to be like Jesus in my own efforts and so one moment I’m too harsh with a sister in Christ and in another moment I’m too compromising for fear of upsetting a self-righteous God-denier.

Jesus calls me to be gentle with my sister and to fear Him–no one else, but I need hours with Him, not social media, in order to be like Him.

Yes, God’s children, the church, need to be called out when we sin and confronted when we fall short of representing Jesus. It’s tempting to try to do this wholesale through social media and other venues on the Internet but so much more effective person-to-person, face-to-face in the context of a loving relationship with opportunity for long discussion, clarification, and affirmation.

The local church and our deep friendships with other Christians are the iron that sharpens our iron. It’s slow, small-scale, frustrating, sloppy, inefficient, inglorious, and face-to-face effective for being like Jesus and keeping us from becoming Internet trolls.

Choose slow growth and church family relationships over the swift satisfaction of being right and self-righteous online. We need to build one another up because we have an enemy trying to tear us down and his time for destruction is near.

I respond to every comment and reply to every email so go for it. What do we have to discuss? How are YOU feeling?

As a gift to you, please accept this sample of my new book releasing on March 5th, Graceful Influence: Making a Lasting Impact through Lessons from Women of the Bible

Gotch Culture and Christian trolls on line https://t.co/gnut78V1CZ #TROLLS #amwriting

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) February 23, 2024