What “They” Know About You

You’d be astonished . . . okay, make that creeped out . . . no, horrified, if you knew how much information is collected about you each day through your digital activities.

If you dare to find out, start with this informative article in Quartz Magazine.

An excerpt:

The task of these profile-mapping algorithms is to guess things that you are not likely to willingly reveal. These include your weaknesses, psychometric profile, IQ level, family situation, addictions, illnesses, whether we are about to separate or enter in a new relationship, your little obsessions (like gaming), and your serious commitments (like business projects).

My Great Twitter Purge of 2019

Such a sweet little logo.

I “unfollowed” about 100 good, smart people this weekend. Allow me to explain.

I joined Twitter back in August of 2008, when the relatively new platform was just beginning to gain traction. That was early enough that I was able to register my own name (@DavidHolland) as my Twitter handle—as opposed to something like @DashingDallasDave77 or such.

Eighteen months earlier I’d also registered my name on another emerging social media platform—one that was big with all the college kids. Facebook.

I’d learned in the Internet boom years that when a new platform rolled out, it’s a good idea to stake a claim to your own name on the platform before someone else grabbed it, just in case the platform took off. I’d discovered that there are a lot of David Hollands in the world (especially in England.)

For example, when Google rolled Gmail out in beta form in 2004, I missed being able to register DavidHolland at gmail dot com as my email address, and ended up having to throw my middle initial in there. Ever since I’ve been getting emails intended for some guy in England and I have no doubt that the David Holland with no middle initial has gotten hundreds, probably thousands, of emails intended for me.

Anyway, I noted last August that I was passing my ten year anniversary on Twitter.

In that decade, Twitter (and Facebook) essentially morphed from a way for friends and family to share where they were and what they were doing into a micro-blogging site for political pundits.

. . . and as a result, Twitter (and Facebook) turned us all into political pundits. We woke up one day and we were all George Will.

Social media, delivered to a device that is constantly in our hands, is addictive. Twitter was my addiction. I have friends and loved ones whose drug of choice is Facebook or Instagram. Neuro-scientists are just now getting a feel for what social media is doing to our brain wiring.

Photo: rawpixel on Unsplash

Spoiler alert: It’s not good.

What we know less about is how, in the Obama-Trump era, social media also began to fundamentally warp the fabric of our society. I should also note that Instragram is just as potentially toxic but in different ways for different reasons.

Some platforms fuel rage. Others fuel envy and insecurity. Neither is healthy. But to repeat, Twitter is my drug of choice. And, the only person in the world I can control is me.

And thus I made a decision.

This weekend I ruthlessly culled my Twitter follows with a clear set of criteria in mind. In each case I asked:

“Does this account consistently bring me either joy, laughter, encouragement, wisdom, or useful knowledge of things I enjoy knowing more about?”

Or conversely, “Does this account typically bring me information that makes me want to punch somebody, or at least give them a good and proper tongue lashing to straighten out their thinking?”

If the answer was “yes” to the latter, rather than the former, I unfollowed (or in some cases muted). The “unfollow” did not mean that I didn’t like or admire the person behind the account. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t rooting for them. It didn’t mean I wouldn’t go read that person at length on a blog or in a publication.

It simply meant that I’m now curating my Twitter feed in such a way that I’ll walk away from each session on the platform a happier, wiser, smarter, more hopeful person.

As opposed to a rage-filled, hyper-tensive, pessimist convinced the world is going to hell because it’s filled with horrible people.

What brings me joy is faith, history, science, archeology, maps, space exploration, books, military stuff, sports, and humor. And now my Twitter follows reflect these interests.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not sticking my head in the sand.

It’s not that I don’t believe in staying informed about our nation and world. I was a highly well-informed individual before social media existed and I will continue to be one long after I’ve purged the culture wars out of my timeline.

What I won’t be is a constantly outraged, worried individual.

As I think about it, social media has probably lowered the depth and breadth of my knowledge about what’s going on in the world. On Twitter and Facebook, everything you read is about the one or two stories that constitute the main ingredient in the outrage du jour.

Each new day brings hundreds of people saying and sharing basically the same thing about one or two things. This crowds out other important, but non-sensational events.

So, this morning over coffee, as is my habit, I reached for my phone to pop open Twitter. I did so knowing that what I would find there would most likely bring me joy.

It did. And I thought: Why didn’t I do this long ago.

Why the Long Arc of the Moral Universe Still Bends Toward Justice

Today the nation marks the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. For some federal and state workers, this means a day off. For many on social media, it means a cue to virtue signal by trotting out a well-known MLK quote. A couple of snippets from the well known, “I Have a Dream” speech will get the most use.

Few Americans outside of academic circles have ever read King at length. We know him almost exclusively in pithy quotes and grainy, black-and-white sound bites. But he was a brilliant, eloquent, persuasive writer. His best-known speeches are really just extensions of his genius as a writer.

His “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a stunning tour-de-force apologetic for the Civil Rights Movement in the tradition of the great Christian apologists of the second and third centuries. In it, he builds a case, addresses common objections, and appeals to the better angels of the readers’ natures. A taste:

I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. 

Poetry. In “Birmingham Jail” King reminds me of the early church father Tertullian of North Africa, who wrote repeatedly to the the Roman authorities pleading the case of the oppressed, persecuted, and scapegoated Christians of the Roman Empire. Tertullian famously warned the Romans:

The more we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.

One of Rev. King’s most oft-quoted phrases is some variation of: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” (It is sometimes quoted as “the arc of History . . .”) King used this phrase in a 1958 article called “Out of the Long Night” published in The Gospel Messenger—the official publication of The Church of the Brethren.

This quote did not originate with King. In fact, he put the phrase in quote marks in the article to indicate that he was citing a saying that he assumed was already known to the reader. King later repeated the phrase is several speeches. The originator of the saying was a Unitarian abolitionist minister named Theodore Parker, born in 1810.

Rev. Theodore Parker (1810-1860)

What MLK quoted was a boiled down version of what Rev. Parker originally wrote:

Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.


In both forms, the message rings as true. Doubly so if you’re a student of History. But why? Why has the story of the last 2000 years been one of gradual but consistent upward progress, particular in the West?

The answer, of course, is Christianity . . . or more accurately . . . the presence of the kingdom of God on earth, expanding, unfolding, leavening the cultures of the world like yeast.

The abolition of slavery; the elevation of the status of women in society; respect for private property and the rights of the individual; and the gradual dissolution of class distinctions are all the emerging expressions of the Christ’s emerging kingdom.

It’s tempting and far too easy to focus on what remains to be done. But the kingdom cotinues to expand. The arc still bends toward justice.


This Woman of Mine

I’m working from home today and Mrs. H is out of the house, throwing herself headlong into  a long list of tasks for me, her work, her family, and for friends. As all who know her will attest, she is a force of nature. Some wonder what her secret is. I know all of her secrets.

In fact, as I sit here on our sofa where we share morning coffee, one of them is visible just to my left. The evidence is visible in the photo above. She is a woman of the Word.

All is just as she left it this morning. And every morning. As she is prone to reminding herself, me, and those she loves:

Wisdom shouts in the streets.
She cries out in the public square.
She calls to the crowds along the main street,
to those gathered in front of the city gate:
Come and listen to my counsel.
I’ll share my heart with you
and make you wise.

She has heeded, wisdom’s call, this woman of mine. Father, “Reward her for all she has done.” (Proverbs 31:31)

God Places the Lonely in Families . . .

 

 

It’s Thanksgiving night and the house that was full a few hours ago is quiet again. Now it’s me that’s full. I’m full in stomach and heart. Mrs. H outdid herself. And our family was together.

“Family.”

God created family as the most powerful and effective institution on earth for creating and maintaining well-being. It is His richest gift to mankind. (Aside from the gift of His own Son, of course.)

Yes, I know that in our broken, fallen world not everyone experiences the blessings, protections, and benefits that God meant the family structure to provide. Families can be and often are dysfunctional and even toxic. But that doesn’t change the fact that when a family is whole and operating as God designed, it offers the closest thing to heaven we can experience on earth.

Family is the heart of God. Psalm 68:6 speaks of God’s redemptive, restorative nature. The psalmist reminds us that “God places the lonely in families; he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy.” 

If God had his way, every lonely, isolated person would be in a loving, functional family. That’s because He’s good and kind.

And for that, I’m truly thankful.

On Earth as in Heaven

Many believers have misinterpreted Jesus’ words in John 18:36, wherein Jesus tells Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

They take this to mean that Jesus’ Kingdom has no earthly manifestation. In other words, that until His physical return, His kingdom remains exclusively spiritual and therefore invisible.

The unavoidable implication of this is that the believer should not expect the advance or expansion of Jesus’ kingdom to impact the natural world—including our physical bodies, nature, or earthly institutions.

Consistent with this view, many believers gauge the expansion of His kingdom by one measure alone . . . souls saved.

But is this an accurate understanding of Jesus’ words to Pilate? I don’t think so.

Understanding the words, “My kingdom is not of this world,” hinges on the meaning of the word “of.” I’m convinced that Jesus was saying that His kingdom’s legitimacy and validity did not derive from any earthly source. Rather, the authority and legitimacy of His rule was (and is) rooted in Heaven—a much higher source.

Consider the context. Jesus is being questioned by an earthly ruler, Pontius Pilate. Pilate was the ruler of the prefect of Judea because the Roman Emperor Tiberius designated it so.  Pilate’s authority and legitimacy was rooted in the earthly power of the Roman Emperor and the Roman Senate.

In other words, Pilate’s kingdom was of Rome.

Jesus knew this was Pilate’s frame of reference when he asked Jesus: “Are you the King of the Jews?” The implication behind the question is, “If you are the King of the Jews, then some earthly authority must have declared it so.”

Perhaps the Jewish people took a vote. Maybe the Sanhedrin had convened a secret council and determined that Jesus was indeed the rightful heir to David’s throne. Maybe an enemy foreign government was trying to destabilize the eastern edge of the Roman Empire by installing a rival ruler.

With a single phrase, “My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus swept away all of these unspoken questions. Meaning, “Yes, I am a king, but not because any  earthly legislative body or governmental authority says so. The throne that declares me a king is not anywhere on this planet.”

The words Jesus spoke immediately following this response validate this interpretation:

“If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” (John 18:36)

In other words, “If my kingdom were rooted in earthly authority then earthly people would use earthly force to keep me from being killed.”

Nothing in Jesus’ response should keep us from expecting that the expansion of His rule—seeing His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven—will impact the physical realm here and now.

That physical realm includes your physical body; your family and home; your neighborhood, community, and the entire culture. But we don’t see these impacts if we don’t believe they are legitimate.

In the light of all this, it’s not surprising that an era in which the dominant evangelical theology has marginalized the concept of Jesus’ kingdom to being wholly invisible and largely in the future . . . is the very era in which the earthly institutions such as the arts, academia, the sciences, and government have been overtaken by darkness and godlessness.

The kingdom of Jesus is a present and progressively unfolding reality.

No, it is not of this world, but it is very much in it.

He Arose in the Dark

He arose in the dark.

Our familiar Easter sunrise services have trained us to associate the resurrection with sunrise. This is because the discovery of the empty tomb by the women occurs around daybreak. All four gospels record their arrival at the tomb at or just before sunrise on the day after the Sabbath. As Mark describes it, “Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb at the rising of the sun.”[1]

This means they assembled and began their journey to the garden while it was still quite dark. When they arrived, as every Sunday School child can tell you, the tomb was already quite empty.

So, I emphasize this once more. He arose in the dark. There is a large message in this small detail of the resurrection narrative.

We ought not wait for our circumstances to brighten to put our hope in a faithful God. We must not say to God, “Show me some improvement and then I’ll believe in your goodness and mercy.”

No, it is when things seem the most hopeless and grim that we should anchor our faith to the rock of expectancy. It is when it seems “too late” that we must muster words of praise and thanksgiving.

We all recall that Paul and Silas sang a hymn of praise from the depths of a filthy Philippian dungeon, but do we remember when? I summon Acts 16:25 to rise and testify. “At midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God . . .”

When did these shackled saints find their song of praise? At midnight! When things seemed the most hopeless! You know the result. “Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s shackles were loosened.”[2]

Oh, dear child of God, do not wait on the dawn to find your shout of confidence in God. Sing your song now, in the middle of your midnight hour, when trouble seems to be pressing in all around you. Anyone can sing a hymn at noon under a clear blue sky. That kind of faith doesn’t alarm principalities and powers.

The day doesn’t begin at dawn. It begins at midnight. Likewise, that is when God’s resurrection power comes. Tombs open in the middle of the night. Graves burst open in the middle of the night. Jesus comes walking on the waves in the middle of the night with a message for you and me. It is that very one He spoke to Jairus who had just absorbed the news that his daughter had died, “Do not fear. Only believe . . .”[3]

Don’t be afraid of the dark.

[1]Mark 16:2

[2]Acts 16:25-26

[3]Luke 8:50