When I was substitute teaching, I would hear middle and high school students talk about “My Space” and how easy it was for them to send messages…sometimes right in the middle of class. At the time, I had no interest in social media. Yes, there were two special interest chat rooms I participated in, but since I had no internet connection at home, my online time was limited. Then, about ten years ago, my boss at the radio station insisted that all the staff join Facebook to expand the station’s reach to our listeners.
What a revelation that was! I made many of the naïve newbie mistakes, “liking and sharing” and “pasting and posting” many memes and stories that appeared to be faith-based but were actually ruses used by hackers and spammers and their bots to accumulate personal information which they could either sell or use for their own nefarious purposes. Slowly, I came to realize that I, like so many other Christians, was gullible when it came to certain things that were labeled “Christian.” Once I became aware of this, I also realized it was nothing new. My eldest sister’s husband was a very early computer nerd. I’m talking about the machines that required 500 square feet of air-conditioned “clean” space and were operated by instructions punched into checkbook-sized cardstock. He discovered computers while in the Navy, got a technical institute degree and then went to work for what is now McDonnel-Douglas Aircraft in Missouri. Those were the folks who designed and build the earliest computers for NASA in the 1950s.
I got into a conversation with him at the time my library was installing an automation system and telling him how at least once an evening I had to crawl under a table to disconnect and reconnect cables because the system kept crashing. That’s when he told me the story. (Just to be clear, my brother-in-law was known to tell some whoppers, so I have no way of knowing if it is true, and he’s no longer on this planet to either confirm or deny it)
I have to go back to the year 1965. One day our school principal, Sister Marie DeChantal, burst into our sixth-grade science class. She had just opened the day’s mail and had received a mimeographed notice from another school principal. The missive contained the account of how NASA computer scientists had been attempting to use a computer to create a calendar that could go back to the beginning of time. They thought they had the program nailed, but every time they ran it, it would crash at about 3,500 years ago, and they couldn’t figure out why. Then one of the technicians remembered the story from Sunday school about how Joshua commanded the sun to stand still to give the Israelites time to win a battle. The scientists then entered that information into the program and it ran perfectly. Sister DeChantal was flushed with excitement. “This shows that science now proves the Bible is true!” And of course, we all went home and told our parents and siblings about the miraculous thing NASA computers had done.
Of course, it was all a hoax. But those purple mimeographed sheets made their way from one end of the country to the other. Interestingly, 55 years later, it still occasionally pops up in email chain letters. What my brother-in-law told me was that he and his coworkers were the instigators of that hoax. Although raised Catholic, he was contemptuous of religion and considered religious people to be gullible fools. His coworkers felt the same. And so, they dreamed up the story. They printed it up on some NASA letterhead and sent it off to a science teacher at one of the St. Louis Catholic schools. From there, it spread cross country with an amazing speed. And my brother-in-law and his friends had a good laugh at how stupid religious people were.
Facebook daily proves that not just Christians are still extremely gullible.
Still there were many fascinating things to see on Facebook. One which was particularly amusing was the “Russian Life Hacker.” He would demonstrate the way most people did commonplace things – everything from folding a fitted bed sheet to cracking an egg to applying a bandaid. Then he would declare, “You’re doing it wrong!” and perform his “new and improved” method to accomplish the task. While that particular man seems to have disappeared from Facebook (although I’m sure his shenanigans are still available on YouTube), the “You’re doing it wrong!” culture has spread throughout all social media platforms.
Storing your potatoes in the refrigerator? “You’re doing it wrong!” Washing your cast iron skillet? “You’re doing it wrong!” Putting pineapple on your pizza? “You’re doing it wrong!” (Well, if you do put pineapple on your pizza, you are doing it wrong) And on and on it goes. Never mind that you may have been successfully using a particular method for ten, twenty, thirty or even fifty years, you’re still doing it wrong! Once I got past the initial surprise, which was followed by irritation when I discovered the “new and improved” system didn’t always (or ever) work, I settled into the attitude of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and scrolled past any further claims.
But there is one area in which the “you’re doing it wrong!” culture causes me distress. I came across it just a couple of weeks ago. The banner of a well-respected Christian website declared something along the lines of, “If you’re only spending ten minutes a day reading a Bible verse, you’re doing it wrong!” Now the body of the article went on to explain that it takes more than ten minutes a day to develop an intimate relationship with Jesus. Then it went on to set out the systematic plan of Bible study and prayer necessary to “grow” in one’s faith and in the Lord.
Please, don’t get me wrong. Spending an hour or more a day in Bible study and prayer is something to be treasured. Not everyone has that capacity in either time, lifestyle or ability. One of the very first Bible studies I was challenged to undertake back in 1973 when I surrendered to Christ, was to read the gospels land look at every encounter Jesus had with individuals. What I discovered (what I was meant to discover) was that no two were the same. Even when He healed people of blindness, he used differing methods. So it is, down to this very day. Jesus deals with each person as an individual. There are great scholars, fluent in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek, who can parse every sentence in Scripture. Or others who can quote Augustine, Luther, Calvin and Arminius by heart. They have great knowledge. But, as my Pastor said in one of his recent sermons, there is a big difference between growth and fruit. To illustrate, he contrasted the 60-foot tall silver maple in his backyard that showed magnificent growth but no edible (at least to humans) fruit, to a dwarf apple tree that produced a fine crop of sweet apples.
Or to put it in human terms, I am guardian for an uncle who has Fragile X Syndrome. He knows enough of the alphabet to write his name, but no more than that. But when my cousin drove him home from his last stint in a rehab center, he spent the hour-long drive singing hymns. Now, does Uncle Robert, with his limited cognitive ability, have an “intimate” relationship with God? I believe he does.
Most of us will fall somewhere between a scholar like Francis Schaeffer and my Uncle Robert. Some of us with more retentive memories may have entire books of the Bible memorized verbatim. Others may simply remember the gist of the stories. Some may spend hours on their knees in deep intercession, or using a prayer language. Others have “prayer attention deficit disorder” – and have to keep saying, “sorry, God, my mind wandered off. Where were we?” Some can compare and contrast the teachings of the great theologians at the drop of a hat. For others their theology consists of “Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so.”
My point, (finally!) is this. Just as Jesus dealt with each person He encountered in a unique manner, so He does today. If all you have time for, between your spouse, the kids, housework, and your job is ten minutes, five minutes a day to scan a Bible verse, but you love Jesus Christ with all your heart and you follow His commands to the best of your ability, confessing to Him when you cannot, You. Are. Not. Doing. It. Wrong. You are doing it all right.
Kathy Kexel 