I don’t fear cancel culture. I fear myself.
Being consistent, the hard work of repentance, and another danger of social media.
This is part of a series on the book Influence by Robert Cialdini in which we’re considering how the gospel turns levers of influence upside down. Read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6 to get caught up.
There are certain convictions and opinions I hold that I am hesitant to share on social media, or from a stage, or from behind a podcast mic.
It’s not because I fear cancel culture. It’s because I fear myself.
I fear my own resistance to repentance. I fear the ways in which my need to appear intelligent, self-assured, and spiritually mature might cause me to choose consistency over contrition. I am all too familiar with the shadows of my sinful heart. I know that without the Holy Spirit’s intervention I will choose to dig my heels further into my past opinions than face the arrow of humility that would bring me to my knees.
Social psychology has identified this tendency in us to choose consistency to our commitments over changing our minds. In his book1 Cialdini defines this lever of influence as
“Our desire to be (and appear) consistent with what we have already said or done. Once we make a choice or take a stand, we encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to think and behave consistently with that commitment.” (294)
Our society values consistency. “It is normally associated with personal and intellectual strength,” Cialdini observes. In contrast, “the person whose beliefs, words, and deeds don’t match is seen as confused, two-faced, even mentally ill” (295). Because of these negative connotations, the more public our commitments, the greater our urge to remain consistent with them.
But in addition to the social advantages of consistency, it also saves us time and mental and emotional energy. Cialdini writes,
“Once we have made up our minds about an issue, stubborn consistency allows us an appealing luxury: we don’t have to think hard about the issue anymore. We don’t have to sift through the blizzard of information we encounter every day to identify relevant facts; we don’t have to expend the mental energy to weigh the pros and cons; we don’t have to make any further tough decisions. Instead, all we have to do when confronted with the issue is click on our consistency program, and we know just what to believe, say, or do.” (295-6)
Ah, the sweet relief of life on autopilot.
But the Gospel calls us to repentance. Jesus urges us to admit our foolish pride and to change our minds and hearts concerning countless numbers of things, least of all our self-assuredness. Our initial act of repentance, our turning away from our sins and outward from our self-absorption is only the beginning of walking with Jesus in a posture of humble willingness to be changed, day after day, hour after hour.
Repentance is not a change by degrees. It is not a slight shift on a spectrum. It is not a sprinkling of remorse and a touch more willpower.
It is a wholesale transformation, a complete life change. The repentant one turns his or her face from the East to the West, from the North to the South, from the kingdom of self to the “kingdom of heaven” (Matt 4:17).
Our repentance is marked by a public commitment in the sacrament of baptism (Acts 2:38). As we are taken beneath the water we acknowledge that we have died with Christ. Our old desires, patterns, behaviors, and fears no longer have power over us. As we burst up through the surface, we take our first breath in Christ, raised to life with Him. The fruit of His Spirit can now do its work in us.
Scripture calls us to consistency, yes, but not with ourselves and our own values. We are to grow more consistent in reflecting Christ and His character, daily dying to ourselves, asking the Spirit to shore up the cracks where our unchanging stubbornness seeps through.
Social media exploits this consistency lever of influence in an especially sinister way. It tracks and records the actions we take and the public commitments we make over time, and it redelivers them to us so that we can act on them again and again. Social media’s algorithms observe our habits of content and product consumption and then use them to define our identities. It chains us to the avatar of our demographic characteristics and then parades us onto the auction block for advertisers to purchase. It malforms our souls by building a steep hill up which we must roll the boulder of repentance. And unlike Sisyphus, Zuckerberg and Musk are pretty confident we will just give up ever trying to change.
It’s time for Christian identity to be more obviously formed by the commitment of our baptism than by the identifying characteristics of our “for you” page. It’s time for us to reject virtue signaling and embrace repentance. It’s time to pursue quiet faithfulness in our flesh and blood lives instead of taking stand after stand on the shifting sands of vacuous algorithmic worlds.
There’s one thing I have said consistently and publicly since my own baptism: Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.
I pray I never want to repent of that.
Beauty in Bread Dough
It’s no secret that I love to bake, and for the last two years I have been developing both my baking skills and my understanding of what the Bible has to say about bread through the ministry of
Beauty in Books
Speaking of books… we read a lot of books at our house, and we’ve been wanting to get outside more, but the weather has been stubborn. Last week we had the great honor of experiencing the highest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. in October—117°F. We would appreciate your prayers for the weather to break. In the meantime, we’ll be parked right here in front of our bookshelves.
In pursuit of Beauty,
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