Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film Inception is a brilliant, often uncomfortable portrayal of a future world where sophisticated technology has unlocked the ability for people to escape reality. Through a fictional “dream-sharing” device, the characters in Inception can create, manipulate, and even invade people’s dreams. At one point in the movie, the heroes visit a scientist with the skill to make a sedative that allows for even more powerful and vivid dream-sharing. Upon seeing dozens of people in the scientist’s basement sleeping on beds, connected to the dream-sharing devices, one character asks, “These people come here to fall asleep?” The scientist answers, “They come here to wake up. The dream has become their reality.”

The writers of Inception used a science-fiction context to make a profound observation about human nature. If we can, we humans will tend to use our technology to put the world God has given us at a distance, and flee into an alternative reality that suits us. Although dream-sharing is the stuff of fantasy, there are indeed sophisticated technologies that bestow a godlike ability to create and inhabit our own universe. In fact, one of these technologies is probably in your hands or your pocket right now.

The Web, the smartphone, and social media together make up nothing less than a cultural revolution. For hundreds of millions of people, they represent the primary point of interaction with the world. We now work, learn, listen, debate, recreate, and even worship through the Internet. Given the radical novelty and enormous imprint of this technology on nearly every facet of our lives, shouldn’t we regularly be asking questions like, What kind of medium is this? Is there something here that may be influencing me at a near-undetectable level?

In fact, the answers to these questions may distress us.

Our Digital Dreamworld

The same year that Christopher Nolan fictionalized a world of escape into dreams, cultural critic Nicholas Carr published his manifesto The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Carr’s thesis is simply articulated but breathtaking in its implications: the Internet is an intellectual technology that is radically altering how we think, read, and communicate. Carr suggests that, whereas much technology (such as the plow or microscope) “extends our physical strength” into the outside world, intellectual technology — such as a clock, a map, or the Internet — directly reshapes how we think. Because of this, intellectual technologies make deeper and more permanent changes in what we believe and value. Carr writes,

Every intellectual technology . . . embodies an intellectual ethic, a set of assumptions about how the human mind works or should work. . . . The intellectual ethic is the message that a medium or other tool transmits into the minds and culture of its users. (The Shallows, 45–46)

As Carr goes on to show, the Web expresses its intellectual ethic in definite ways. Reading a physical book trains the human brain in the skills of quiet and focus, but the Web’s use of hypertext and distraction trains us in the behaviors of skimming, superficial comprehension, and flimsy, impressionistic interpretation. Online, it is very difficult to follow one train of thought deeply or be present for one particular experience or moment, because the Web’s structure emphasizes relentless novelty and diverse input (creating what Carr refers to as “the juggler’s brain”).

Carr’s analysis makes sense of a problem that many of us have. We feel that our phones, our apps, and our browsing are somehow hijacking our ability to read a book for more than few minutes at a time. We sense a diminished capacity to lose ourselves even in moments of true joy. We can detect an angrier, more defensive edge to many conversations even within the church, as people increasingly seem to talk past one another and retreat into competing enclaves that reinforce their opinions. Yet we are often unable to name this problem, and as a result, we’re too frequently left in a muddle of guilt and frustration.

Unfortunately, Christian approaches to this dilemma often settle for generalities. Like the teenage couple that just wants to know how far is too far, believers immersed in the world of the Internet often just want the bare minimum that can appear to “balance” screen time with private devotions or the weekly Sunday service. But this isn’t enough. The challenge before us isn’t to figure out how to inject a little bit of Jesus into our digital dreamworlds. It’s to wake up.

Wisdom’s Wake-Up Call

The book of Proverbs offers an especially compelling wake-up call:

Does not wisdom call?         Does not understanding raise her voice?On the heights beside the way,         at the crossroads she takes her stand;beside the gates in front of the town,         at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud:“To you, O men, I call,         and my cry is to the children of man.O simple ones, learn prudence;         O fools, learn sense.” (Proverbs 8:1–5)

“Every wise word or action has one thing in common: a deep resonance with God-centered reality.”

While it may be tempting to think that the intellectual ethic of the Internet is so far removed from the experience of the biblical authors that they offer nothing to guide us, this would be a profound mistake. Lady Wisdom calls out to digital sleepers, inviting them to feast at her house. This is an invitation we need, because it’s precisely wisdom that our screen-addled age lacks. Wisdom, after all, is nothing less than the habit of living in accordance with what’s real. The God who really exists and the world he really made require us, as some theologians have put it, to “live with the grain of reality” rather than against it. While living wisely has many different facets, every wise word or action has this in common: a deep resonance with God-centered reality.

The connection between wisdom and the real physical world is clear in Proverbs 3:19–20:

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;         by understanding he established the heavens;by his knowledge the deeps broke open,         and the clouds drop down the dew. (Proverbs 3:19–20)

And in Proverbs 8:27–31, Lady Wisdom beautifully sings of how her handiwork is permanently engraved on the creation:

When he established the heavens, I was there;         when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,when he made firm the skies above,         when he established the fountains of the deep,when he assigned to the sea its limit,         so that the waters might not transgress his command,when he marked out the foundations of the earth,         then I was beside him, like a master workman,and I was daily his delight,         rejoicing before him always,rejoicing in his inhabited world         and delighting in the children of man. (Proverbs 8:27–31)

Wisdom is no mere grab bag of helpful quotes or memorable witticisms. Wisdom is the “master workman” through whom the whole (real!) universe was brought forth. Wisdom finds delight in the Creator’s inhabited word and in the humans who reflect the Creator’s glory throughout the cosmos. Wisdom, in other words, is deeply awake to the sheer wonder of the world and the people God has made.

“Wisdom is deeply awake to the sheer wonder of the world and the people God has made.”

In applying Carr’s insights about “the intellectual ethic” of the Internet to the biblical teaching of wisdom, I’ve come to refer to the disembodied character of the Web as a set of “digital liturgies.” Like a church service, the Web is a spiritual habitat that works on our minds and hearts to incline us to think, feel, and believe in certain ways. Why is it so hard to think well? Because the digital liturgies of distraction and novelty are crippling our capacity to grasp big, non-Instagrammable truth. Why is it so easy to feel more unified with online personalities than with the people in our actual home or church? Because the digital liturgies of custom-made identities and curated timelines tell us we should be able to be only what we choose to be. Immersed in these technological narratives, our default is to make the dream our reality.

Paths of Resistance

How can we, through wisdom, resist this?

First, we can structure our lives deliberately to give weight to the people, experiences, and things that are physically real. The habit of morning devotions may seem quaint, but it’s a habit passed down by saints who have experienced its power. In a world of unending ephemera, God has given us permanent words to anchor, convict, and comfort us.

We can also deliberately break our relationships out of the digital prison. A phone call or lunch date connects us to each other much more than a direct message or a “Like.” A good book or hands-on hobby will refresh us after a day in front of a screen much more than hours of streaming or scrolling. Getting outside, with no intention of leveraging the experience for social media applause later, puts us in the path of wisdom by reminding us that God’s world is much bigger than our heads.

Second, we can actively cultivate the habits of deep thinking and winsome speech that the Web erodes. Before the latest news headline or theological controversy drives you to Google, looking for quick reads you can use to jump in the fray, consider taking a few weeks to work through a book or meaty essay that will genuinely enlighten you. Resist the temptation to seek admiration by being the fastest, smartest, or most sarcastic online critic, and redirect that effort toward the kind of comprehension that John’s high Christology or Paul’s precise theology demands.

Finally, we can consider practical measures that keep the world of the Internet playing second fiddle in the daily rhythms of our lives. In his book The Tech-Wise Family, Andy Crouch commends regular tech-free stretches: one hour per day, one day per week, and one week per month of deliberate withdrawal from the most immersive and addictive online activities. Cal Newport outlines a more rigorous “digital detox” in his book Digital Minimalism that can help us rediscover which technologies actually serve our values, and which ones simply keep us hooked. Find an approach that works in your and your family’s season of life and that will help to incline you toward God’s wisdom rather than the un-reality of the Web.

Some Christians today might be surprised to learn that the apostles command us, five times, to “greet [each other] with a holy kiss” (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; or “kiss of love,” 1 Peter 5:14). Really? How’s that supposed to work? When you arrive at church? When you cross paths during the week? And is it okay that many of us today, at least in my Christian circles, are not obeying this command? Or are we?

Previously, we surveyed a theology of kissing by tracing the theme across the Old Testament and identifying a key takeaway for the church age. We then turned to the two signature instances of kissing in the New Testament, both of them in the life of Christ: the holy kisses of one “woman of the city,” from a heart of love and worship (Luke 7:37–38), and the unholy kiss of betrayal from one of Jesus’s own disciples (Luke 22:47–48).

In this scriptural context, then, how do we understand the apostles’ charge about the holy kiss, and how might we apply it today across the stretches of our varying times and customs?

We Are Family

First and foremost, one of the main contributions of the survey was the familial (rather than romantic) nature of kissing in both ancient Israel and the early church. A massive and easily overlooked assumption beneath the apostles’ charge is the familial claim implicit in such instruction. Christ came to create a social reality that transcends that of blood relatives. He came to establish and build his church, as not only a people who receive his grace and salvation but as a family joined together to him, the elder brother, and through him, to the Father, by faith.

The holy-kiss charge communicates more than simply the implicit “we are family” as brothers and sisters in Christ, but we should not ignore this remarkable reality, nor a second truth which flows from it.

We Love Each Other

Not only are we, in Christ, family in fact, but we also are to be familial in affection. That is, we come to be like King David, not only in our words and acts but in our affections, when he says of fellow believers in Psalm 16:3,

As for the saints in the land,they are the excellent ones,in whom is all my delight.

As sinners ourselves, we often find fellow Christians to be some of the hardest people to love. But in our new selves, by the Spirit, the saints — our fellows in Christ, joined also to him — become our delight. However strange and quirky and annoying and difficult, however foolish and weak by the world’s standards (1 Corinthians 1:26–29), we learn to see our family members in Christ, despite their many flaws, as “excellent ones.”

We might then check ourselves with every “holy kiss,” whether a literal kiss (if acceptable still in some places) or in every kind word of greeting, expression of affection, handshake, or hug to a fellow Christian: Do I really manifest the new birth I have in Jesus, the heart that first loves God and also loves those who too have been born of him (1 John 5:1)? Are my demonstrations of affection toward other believers sincere expressions of love? Are my greetings holy, like that of the redeemed “woman of the city” in Luke 7? Or are they deceptive, even conniving, and unholy like the Judas kiss?

“The holy-kiss charge is a rebuke to any who claim Christ and yet nurse a hard heart toward his people.”

When affectionate ways of greeting one another in Christ become our norm, we may notice more readily emerging breaches in relationship. When we newly feel hesitant to embrace, say, some fellow believer (or extend a handshake, heartfelt word, or warm smile), that may indicate some unaddressed issue that needs attention and resolution (at least in our own hearts). Just as it’s hard to sincerely pray for someone while remaining angry at him, it would likewise be hard to give someone a “holy kiss” (or whatever culturally appropriate sign) while harboring bitterness.

Reticence to kiss between spouses may signal unresolved issues in a marriage. So too, in our churches, reticence to greet each other with manifest and unqualified warmth may signal a problem (and lead us to revisit Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 5:23–24). This leads to a third and final truth informing how we think of, and apply, the holy kiss today.

We Love with Sincerity

Surely, “the holy kiss” meant, at least, kissing without lust. But again, kissing in the ancient world (and in Scripture) was far more familial than romantic. And very likely, at the end of five New Testament Epistles, the emphasis is not as much on the charge to kiss, as if early believers were not greeting each other with kisses and needed to introduce this new act. Rather, the emphasis, given that the kiss of greeting was already common and assumed, was that early Christians do so, unlike Judas, with holiness. Greet each other, as family, and without sin.

In other words, express your affection with sincerity, not pretense. When you greet each other, in word or deed, mean it. Don’t flatter or deceive. But first and foremost, genuinely love one another from the heart, as family, brothers and sisters in Christ; then express it genuinely.

No Judas Kisses

Perhaps often overlooked, against the background of Scripture’s most infamous kiss, is the charge to holiness and sincerity in our demonstrations of affection to our fellows in Christ. Imagine how Judas’s unholy peck of betrayal would have freshly dominated the connotations of the kiss for early Christians.

The apostles’ charge for holy kisses means, at least, “Let there be no Judases among us.” Not in the church. Heaven, forbid it. May we never leverage the familial trust of our shared faith in Christ to deceive, use, trick, or exploit other Christians.

So, we resolve with every “holy kiss” not to betray or backstab each other, not to “bite and devour one another” (Galatians 5:15). Rather, we resolve to serve each other, be loyal to each other, love each other in ways that show the world, the flesh, and the devil what kisses are for — not to con or manipulate but to convey heartfelt affection. We greet each other, as family, with sincere love — and resolve to live consistently with our greetings.

Holy Kisses Today

Christians today, in our differing times and cultures, can feel the freedom not to greet each other with literal kisses. But some still may. And regardless, we are enjoined to greet each other — and not without holiness — whether with a hug, handshake, heartfelt word, or whatever similar expression. And perhaps our lingering today over the repeated holy-kiss charge will remind us how important it is to cultivate, and express, affection for our fellows in Christ, who are family, even deeper and more enduringly so than blood relatives.

The holy-kiss charge is a rebuke to any who would claim Christ and yet nurse a critical disposition toward his people. It exposes the folly of Christians who would claim to love our brother Jesus but find his other brothers and sisters merely annoying, or maddening, or to be flattered or exploited.

The holy kiss also reminds us of an important dynamic in corporate worship, to ready our hearts for each Sunday. Indeed, we gather to worship Jesus — and we gather that we might do so together.

Which might lead to an application almost as uncomfortable to modern people as a kiss of greeting: slowing down. What if we considered how hurried we are before and after worship — how late to arrive before the call to worship, and how quick to rush off to lunch or the next event?

We will hardly greet each other with sincere expressions of holy, familial affection without the time and space to greet each other at all.

If an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he or she is not a Christian.

I read Francis Schaeffer’s The Mark of the Christian shortly after it was published in 1970. Schaeffer quoted Christ’s words in John 13:35: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Then he cited Jesus’s prayer in John 17:21 that the disciples “may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Schaeffer tied the verses together:

[In John 13:35] if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he or she is not a Christian. Here [in John 17:21] Jesus is stating something else that is much more cutting, much more profound: We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus’s claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians. (26–27)

A beautiful, biblical slap in the face.

Final Apologetic

I was sixteen — a new believer studying how to defend gospel truth to friends and family. Yet Schaeffer called Christian love and unity “the final apologetic,” the ultimate defense of our faith.

Schaeffer helped me see what should have been self-evident in Christ’s words: believers’ love toward each other is the greatest proof that we truly follow Jesus. If we fail to live in loving oneness, the world — or to bring it closer to home, our family, and friends — will have less reason to believe the gospel.

In 1977, some of us who’d struggled at our churches gathered to worship and study Scripture. Before we knew it, God planted a new church. At twenty-three, as a naive co-pastor, I thought we’d found the secret to unity. But eventually, though our numbers rapidly increased, too many left our gatherings feeling unloved, not experiencing what Schaeffer called the “reality of the oneness of true Christians” (27).

Our Deep Disunity

In the 52 years I’ve known Jesus, I’ve witnessed countless conflicts between believers. But never more than in the last year. Many have angrily left churches they once loved. Believers who formerly chose churches based on Christ-centered Bible teaching and worship now choose them based on non-essential issues, including political viewpoints and COVID protocols.

Churches are experiencing a pandemic of tribalism, blame, and unforgiveness — all fatal to the love and unity Jesus spoke of. Rampant either/or thinking leaves no room for subtlety and nuance. Acknowledging occasional truth in other viewpoints is seen as compromise rather than fairness and charitability.

Sadly, evangelicals sometimes appear as little more than another special-interest group, sharing only a narrow “unity” based on mutual outrage and disdain. This acidic, eager-to-fight negativity highlights Schaeffer’s point that we have no right to expect unbelievers to be drawn to the good news when we treat brothers and sisters as enemies.

Playing into Satan’s Strategy

The increase in Christians bickering over non-essentials doesn’t seem to be a passing phase. And it injures our witness, inviting eye rolls and mockery from unbelievers and prompting believers to wonder whether church hurts more than it helps.

Satan is called the accuser of God’s family (Revelation 12:10). Too often we do his work for him. His goal is to divide churches and keep people from believing the gospel. “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10). When we fail to love each other, we are acting like the devil’s children.

“When we fail to love each other, we are acting like the devil’s children.”

“Give no opportunity to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27). To resist the devil, we must love God with abandonment, and love our neighbor as ourselves. That central principle is the heart and soul of Scripture. “The whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:14–15).

Unity of Differing Opinions

When Paul wrote to believers in Rome, he addressed the issues of what meat was considered “unclean” and which day to worship on — each certainly as controversial in the culture of their day, if not more so, as most political issues or COVID responses are today. The paradigm-shifting revelation he shared in Romans 14 is this: while true love and unity are never achieved at the expense of primary biblical truths, they are achieved at the expense of our personal preferences about secondary issues.

We are “not to quarrel over opinions” (Romans 14:1). Or as the NLT puts it, “Don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong.” Love doesn’t require wholesale agreement.

Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. (Romans 14:3)

Paul emphatically states that equally Christ-centered people can have different beliefs, which lead to them taking different — even opposite — actions in faith.

“One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind” (Romans 14:5). We can take contradictory positions on nonessential issues but still honor God by valuing love over our opinions.

Pursue What Makes for Peace

As long as we hold our convictions with faith and a good conscience, God himself approves of people on both sides of nonessential matters. And if God can be pleased both by those who do and don’t eat certain foods that were prohibited under Old Testament law, and by those who worship on the Sabbath or on another day of the week, can’t he also be pleased with those who choose to take or not take a vaccine, or to wear or not wear a mask?

“Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?” (Romans 14:4). God warns us not to set up our own judgment seats as if we were omniscient. Why do we imagine we can know that a brother’s or sister’s decisions, heart, and motives are wrong?

“Each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another” (Romans 14:12–13). We will not ultimately answer to each other, but we will answer to God concerning each other.

“Raise your expectations for love and unity in your church. Lower your expectations for them coming naturally.”

“So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. . . . The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God” (Romans 14:19, 22). Peace and edification don’t come naturally; they require Spirit-empowered work.

The call to “pursue” peace (or “make every effort,” NIV) means unless there’s a compelling reason to speak or post, and you’ve sought God’s direction and sense his leading, and you can speak graciously, then do what Scripture says and keep what you believe between yourself and God. Having a strong opinion never equals God telling us to express it. Scripture confronts us for how we have treated each other before the watching world:

“A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion” (Proverbs 18:2).
“When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent” (Proverbs 10:19).
“There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (Proverbs 12:18).

Steps Toward Love and Unity

What other practical steps might we take toward love and unity in our fractured times?

1. Practice James 1:19. If we would only “be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger,” this alone would foster love and unity to an astonishing degree.

2. When you disagree, if possible, meet face to face and talk. Don’t shred each other publicly.

3. Ask yourself where you are pointing. Will my words or social-media post be more or less likely to draw others to Jesus?

4. Raise your expectations for love and unity in your church. Lower your expectations for them coming naturally or easily.

5. Repent of being an agitator; commit to becoming a peacemaker.

6. Talk to your church leaders. Honestly articulate problems and ask how you can help foster love and unity.

7. Pray for those who’ve hurt you. Doing so transformed my relationship with a brother. One of my wife’s closest friends is someone she chose to intercede for decades ago, despite their conflicts.

8. Ask God to help you reject pride and develop true humility. A.W. Tozer said, “Only the humble are completely sane, for they are the only ones who see clearly their own size and limitations” (Tozer on Christian Leadership, 11). To think clearly is to think humbly. “Think of yourself with sober judgment” (Romans 12:3).

True unity is grounded on

mutually believed primary truths about Jesus,
refusal to elevate secondary beliefs over primary beliefs,
demonstrated heartfelt love for Jesus and others, and
the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.

When I reread The Mark of the Christian fifty years later, when divisiveness is the air we breathe, it spoke to me more deeply than ever. Schaeffer’s message rings true: when we call upon God, and make concerted efforts to live in humble love and unity, people see Jesus, and some will believe in him.