EVANGELICAL POLL RESULTS

MSNBC is essentially a left-wing parody of Fox News. I don't expect them to give anyone with conservative beliefs a fair shake, ever.

As for dealing with dishonest haters of Christianity on Twitter, I'm just going to obey Matthew 7:6.

Iris15 said:

I was just hoping Christians more knowledgeable than myself would get on Twitter and defend our beliefs.

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I will be honest with you and tell you that I have never seen any situation where someone who despised Christians ever changed their mind through apologetics. Spend a few days in the "outreach" forums and you will see. Apologetics is not intended to persuade unbelievers or to bring people to the faith. Rather, the purpose of apologetics is to strengthen the faith of the believers by giving them a well grounded "justifiable" faith. The Bible actually demands that we have a reason for our faith and not settle for blind faith (1 Peter 3:15). Only by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit is it possible to soften a skeptics heart so they can come to repentance. The bottom line is this, actions speak louder than words. The best way to "defend our beliefs" is to be a reflection of the light of Christ through love and obedience in God's word.

I utilize social media for business purposes. I don’t believe trading barbs is ideal. The conversations digress into mudslinging and my witness would be negatively impacted.

I am His representative in the marketplace. Not a lone ranger. I would address the matter in prayer and seek apologetics and evangelism instruction to strengthen your position and guard against emotional retorts.

Iris15 said:

I wonder how much exposure these people on Twitter have had to Christianity. Most of the time I ask myself is this a true statement or something I would want God to see when post. But a few times I've vented mildly about politics.

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I don't believe in fighting ignorance on Twitter. Most of the time I'm not even sure posting on this forum is a good or Godly pursuit of a Christians time, so Twitter is a definite no.

Social media can have some good aspects, but I stopped using some of these large platforms when I realized (via personal experience) that if you gave well researched, well thought out and well spoken replies to various accusations your reply would be deleted or hid from public view, but those who made short ignorant responses full of cussing would stand.

The owners of these platforms only want one view presented and go out of their way to make sure that view is all the world sees... no point wasting time at these places as a result.

Iris15 said:

I was just hoping Christians more knowledgeable than myself would get on Twitter and defend our beliefs.

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I can appreciate that, but it is a losing cause since the owners of Twitter can always counter that development by rigging the online results.

Iris15 said:

I recently signed up with Twitter, and it's pretty vile, but if I have something important to say I express my opinion on Twitter. I feel like evangelicals are getting trashed on MSNBC, in particular about a Twitter thread saying evangelicals are hypocrites (and worse) because a poll says 68%of evangelicals believe the US should not accept refugees. On this thread I said refugees who are fleeing violence, persecution and inhumane conditions should be give refuge and all immigrants treated with respect and equality. Shouldn't evangelicals get on Twitter to defend their faith more often?

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It is hard to know what the best course of action is with the refugee issue. The fact is that a lot of attention is given to refugees fleeing conflicts like Syria, and in the middle of all of that you get refugees who may be aligned to ISIS or other terror groups. So I think the west becomes weary of accepting what they perceive to be a dangerous refugee. The problem then is that genuine refugees get forgotten, those fleeing persecution or violence.

There are a lot of people world wide who suffer regular persecution, often at the hands of Islamic militant and like groups. Often in countries like Nigeria, parts of the country suffer regular persecution, and the population of those suffering is too large to be taken as refugees, in those cases, other solutions need to be considered, including intervention from the West in protecting them.

Iris15 said:

I recently signed up with Twitter, and it's pretty vile, but if I have something important to say I express my opinion on Twitter. I feel like evangelicals are getting trashed on MSNBC, in particular about a Twitter thread saying evangelicals are hypocrites (and worse) because a poll says 68%of evangelicals believe the US should not accept refugees. On this thread I said refugees who are fleeing violence, persecution and inhumane conditions should be give refuge and all immigrants treated with respect and equality. Shouldn't evangelicals get on Twitter to defend their faith more often?

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I'm a bit torn on it.

On the one hand, I can see the value of apologetics, which is the defense of the faith. Such men exist, like Ravi Zacharias.

But for most people, what is the goal exactly?

Jesus lived a perfect life, and healed people, raised people from the dead even, and he was maligned and hated, until they killed him.

So my question to Christians that want to go and argue with the pagans is... what is your goal?

I think some Christians have the idea that you are going to correct the pagans, and then everyone really realize how good Christians are, and all these false accusations will go away.

But Jesus did that far better than any of us ever could, and he was killed for it.

The pagans will always hate Christianity, because we expose the evil to the light. You will never convince the pagan world around us, that we are good.

Now do I think we should defend our Christian faith? Sure. And in the event that a pagan confronts me with his lies and hatred of Christianity, I will be quick to give the truth. I have no problem calling out the lies, and giving a defense of the faith.

However, for me personally... I don't go out of my way to confront the pagans. I don't specifically go onto forum to find people screaming about Christians, because if anyone did that, they would spend their whole life doing it.

If you dedicated your entire life to confronting lies and slander against Christ, you would never do anything else for your entire life, and never run out of lies to confront, and never change the opinion of a single pagan.

Again, there are people who dedicate their lives to standing against the pagan lies and slander. If you are called to live the life of Ravi Zacharias, then that's a different thing. And you should go and defend the faith at discussions around the world.

But just for average people like us.....

I posted this before, but a wise preacher from years and years ago said that the great commission was to shine the light, not scream at the darkness.

Every Christian needs to consider when they confront a pagan who is spewing hatred and lies about the Christian faith.... are you by engaging with this pagan, shining the light? Or screaming at the darkness?

Maybe you can reach more pagans, by doing volunteer work at a shelter for immigrants down by the border? Or volunteering to help teach English to immigrants that can't speak English... and maybe that's how we shine the light by proving what we stand for, more than shouting at those who lie about us.

As a complete side note, as a personal opinion of my own.....

Twitter is terrible. Good answers.... are complex answers. Twitter is geared towards spitting. By just the nature of language.... communications that are super short, are more easily adopted to spitting at people. It's hard to have a good conversation about complex topics, when you are limited to 140 characters.

Lying about someone, or slandering someone, is easy in 140 characters. Defending yourself or your faith, is hard in 140 characters.

So I just flat out avoid twitter, or any social media that doesn't give me the flexibility to give a good quality answer to someone's accusations.

Iris15 said:

I recently signed up with Twitter, and it's pretty vile, but if I have something important to say I express my opinion on Twitter. I feel like evangelicals are getting trashed on MSNBC, in particular about a Twitter thread saying evangelicals are hypocrites (and worse) because a poll says 68%of evangelicals believe the US should not accept refugees. On this thread I said refugees who are fleeing violence, persecution and inhumane conditions should be give refuge and all immigrants treated with respect and equality. Shouldn't evangelicals get on Twitter to defend their faith more often?

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In some cases they are hypocrites. How can you be a Christian and support Israel to the point that you would defend them and justify them bombing hospitals and killing children in Palestine. Yes the pastors preach, to love your neighbour.