Within such a post-truth society, the most countercultural thing that Christians can do is refuse to play the game. Whatever the world may pretend, we know that reality is a very stubborn thing, and it can only be evaded, not twisted into whatever shape we wish. Thus, even if others insist on casually lying to you or about you, you can still choose not to make any claims whose veracity you cannot vouch for with a straight face—however much you may feel they are true.

If you grew up as a Christian in the 1990s or early 2000s, chances are you were exposed to Christian worldview training that warned against the dangers of postmodernism. We were told that postmodernists did not believe there was such a thing as absolute truth: At best, all truth claims were relative, reflecting perspective and bias. At worst, they were just assertions of power by elites seeking to reinforce their privilege.
By this definition, we’re all postmoderns now.
Whereas some progressives were ideologically committed to this “hermeneutic of suspicion,” imbibing it from philosophers like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Richard Rorty, conservatives learned their suspicion from experience. As James Davison Hunter writes in his new book, Democracy and Solidarity, “Conservatives … looked around them and saw universities, news organizations, and even the new social media websites—all the proud inheritors of the liberal discourse tradition—cheerfully employing every tool at their disposal to restrict the range of acceptable opinion.” Truth claims, many of us concluded, were mere power plays.
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Word has just emerged that the Nazarene denomination has taken a bold stand against free sex. A Church of the Nazarene court has found Thomas Jay Oord guilty of affirming and advocating for the inclusion of LGBTQ+ members, contrary to the church’s teachings. The church stated in part, “The Church of the Nazarene holds that ‘the practice of same-sex sexual intimacy is contrary to God’s will.’ ”

Last month during Pride Month I wrote (“Gay Nazarenes”) about a book with the intriguing title Why the Church of the Nazarene Should be Fully LGBTQ+ Affirming by Thomas Jay Oord, a pastor of the Nazarene Church, and Lexa Oord (SacraSage, 2023), encouraging the Church to adopt the full practice of same-sex marriage. Since ninety-some leaders of the Church wrote contributions for the book, I took it to represent the official position of the denomination. I was wrong.
I received a letter from Thomas Hogan, Senior Pastor of Amazing Grace Church of the Nazarene in Walla Walla, WA., stating that the “The majority of the denomination does not agree with Thomas Oord who is undergoing a denominational trial because his teachings are not in line with the denomination.” This is good news, especially since I finished my article by calling on my readers to pray for the Nazarenes. Christian orthodoxy cannot afford to lose a church known by its faithfulness to the Scriptures, especially in the light of the growing social power the LGBTQ ideology. For instance, how disappointing it was to see the Olympic games, a celebration of physical health, mock Christianity by imitating the classic painting of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, including a group of drag queens enjoying the celebratory meal. In French the statement was made very clear and in rhyme: “La scène (the scene) de la Cène (the Last Supper) près de la Seine” (the river in Paris). In French, each key word sounds the same. The irony is that the water in the Seine is polluted, possibly interfering with some of the events. Inevitably, some swimmers are complaining of sickness.
Back to the Nazarenes. Word has just emerged that the Nazarene denomination has taken a bold stand against free sex. A Church of the Nazarene court has found Thomas Jay Oord guilty of affirming and advocating for the inclusion of LGBTQ+ members, contrary to the church’s teachings. The court’s statement is worth repeating:
We, the members of the Regional Board of Discipline, unanimously find to a moral certainty and beyond a reasonable doubt … that Thomas Jay Oord is guilty of conduct unbecoming a minister and of teaching doctrines out of harmony with the doctrinal statement of the Church of the Nazarene.” The Church of the Nazarene holds that “the practice of same-sex sexual intimacy is contrary to God’s will.
This is encouraging since many churches are giving in, such as the Open Way Church in Vancouver, Canada. Their Pastor Beth, who is “gay married” to another woman, invited pastor Carolina Glauster to preach in a Zoom service. Glauster is a Lutheran pastor who leads Mount Olivet Lutheran Church while also being in a proudly and open polyamorous relationship, having a “partner” and a “metamour” (the partner of your partner/ lover of your lover.) Inevitably there’s a bunch of openly practicing polyamorous men and women in this church. Naturally, Pastor Beth makes a point to gush over this relationship and polyamorous lifestyle, inviting any congregants who think they might want to explore this type of thing to get in touch with her.
Biblical Christians in many denominations can give thanks to God for the courage of fellow believers in the Nazarene Church and for their example to be followed throughout our movement. Certainly, we should love homosexuals, but we cannot endorse their sexual practice. As human beings created in God’s image, we are male and female, as the Scripture clearly states (Gen 1:27). In our sexuality, God calls us to bear witness to an increasingly unbelieving world.
Dr. Peter Jones was director of truthXchange, a communications center aimed at equipping the Christian community to recognize and effectively respond to the rise of paganism. Used with permission.
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What if instead of seeking a large platform to make a name for themselves, individual Christians made niche, interest-based content for specific audiences, seeing themselves as missionaries to those people? Instead of the Christian media landscape being dominated by a handful of celebrities, small to midsize Christian content creators—rooted in their local churches—have the opportunity to speak to their niches in helpful ways and minimize the attention given to those who represent evangelicalism with their platform but not their character. What might this look like? 

People sometimes say, “Social media is neutral. It’s just about how you use it.” This is false. As we learn more about social media’s role in our national mental health crisis, it’s increasingly clear this technology is anything but neutral—and government leaders are starting to respond. In May, Montana became the first state to enact a total ban on TikTok. Arkansas enacted a similar law that requires minors to have parental approval to create an account on certain social media platforms.
Christians know well that social media’s harmful effects also extend to our spiritual formation. As authors like Chris Martin have noted, social media has become our chief discipler. It conforms our minds to the patterns of the content we consume (anxious, outraged, fearful, and numb), reengineers our habits with its liturgical practices (opening, scrolling, swiping, liking, and commenting), and asks us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices (posting content for consumption by others and profit for the corporation through advertisers).
Social media acts as a spiritual and cognitive distortion machine that warps our view of reality and bends our will away from God. It’s the systematic, corporately incentivized inversion of Romans 12:1–2. Instead of our minds being renewed by the Spirit of Christ, they’re shaped by algorithmically curated delivery of the particular patterns of the world that best play to our unsanctified desires. They beckon us into conformity with the world by drawing our hearts and minds away from God.
Social media isn’t a neutral player in our sanctification. It’s an active agent working against our becoming more like Christ.
This doesn’t mean social media is entirely irredeemable. Our media intake has the potential to form us both away from Christ and toward Christ. It’s because algorithms mirror our desires that the possibility of redeeming social media exists. The more our desires are for Christ, and the more content we seek out to aid us in our desire for him, the more the algorithm will be bent toward Christ-centered content that benefits our discipleship. The very tool that can pull us away from Christ has the ability to be re-formed to push us toward Christ.
New Categories of Christian Social Media Users
While we need to be wise about our engagement in the spiritual distortion zone of social media—and for some, that might mean stepping away entirely—we also need new categories for thinking about it Christianly and modes of operating that glorify Christ and help others flourish in a digital Babylon. Here are four categories to consider.
1. Discipleship through Content Creation
We underestimate the formative power of the steady drip of content consumption over time. If consuming digital content can form us away from Christ, then it can also form us toward Christ. But we need faithful, intentional, intelligent Christians creating this content and using best practices to reach their intended audience.
Churches have a unique opportunity to do this for their particular congregations. More and more, as pastors are replaced by podcasts and average church attendance drops to once a month, churches can meet their congregants where they are throughout the week by producing local digital media that keeps people connected to their local congregation.
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