Unka Glen

asideofthings asked: Thank you for all the wonderful guidance you’re giving to young people like me! These advices are nuggets of gold. I have a dilemma that I’m struggling with. When I see someone abuse a bible principle/verse, I’m unsure whether or not I should step in and voice out. Often it happens on twitter, with prideful people who can’t accept that they’re wrong.

Unka Glen answered: Proverbs 25:4-5 says, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, and he will be wise in his own eyes.” Or you can follow the modern day equivalent of that verse: don’t feed the trolls. 

The enemy often uses the internet to set a trap for Christians. Imagine if you will, one demon reporting to another demon (in the style of C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters) on how this trap is set up. 

“You’ll be pleased at the brilliant trap I’ve devised! No Christian will be able to resist falling for it! The bait for this trap is simply a debate that the Christian knows he or she can win. Their vanity won’t allow them to consider anything but rushing in to achieve victory! They know the right answer, and they can express it in 140 characters or less. And of course they must defend the Bible, so they will take the bait without thinking.

We can tie up thousands, maybe millions of Christians this way, working tirelessly to convince people that not only won’t be convinced, but would never even consider being convinced, lest they lose the attention they so desperately crave. These Christians will think themselves brave heroes and defenders of the faith, meanwhile they’ll step over someone wide open to hearing the Gospel in order to type out their latest reply.

The best part is the bitterness, the meanness, and the personal conflicts that these conversations always descend into. They’ll think that this is what outreach is! Conflict and drama and ugliness! Oh my! The very best part of this is, the people we will tempt into posting all these easily provable wrong things will be people who are hurting, and the Christians will never think to stop and bring healing, they’ll eagerly do more damage!

In conclusion, I think we were all pretty pleased with the amount of porn we’ve got onto the internet, and how easily people are tempted over to it, but in the end, I believe my plan will: A) distract them for longer, B) corrupt their minds, C) pervert their goals, and D) keep them from doing the kind of good we worry about them doing in the world. By comparison, porn is just a guilt machine. Best wishes, and as always, Hail Satan.”

If you’ve fallen for this trap, raise your hand. Okay, I see basically everyone’s hand is up, so let’s all commit to doing better, shall we?

With that, is there anything you can do? I think there is. Think of the people that respect what you have to say. That might be people who follow your Tumblr, or people in your church, or Twitter followers. Tell them, “I’ve seen some things floating around on the internet, and in case you’ve seen the same thing, here are a few Bible verses to look at.” 

In that way, rather than engaging the fool on his folly, you’re engaging with your people and helping them to learn the truth.