Thursday, March 12
Read: Psalm 23; 1 Samuel 15:10-21; Ephesians 4:25-32
The Apostle Paul would have hated the algorithm.
The algorithm is the way that social media posts and information are ranked and presented to each of us. The algorithm is based on tons of data that machines learn from each of us. They know what we like and what we dislike. Most importantly for the platforms, they know what gets us to engage with the platform and with others on the platform.
Our emotions are often what drive our engagement. Whether purposeful or not, the result of the algorithm is often the prioritizing of things that make us angry more than make us happy. Getting hit with instances of highly emotional information can shape us in certain ways.
I’m concerned that the algorithm has helped the Church to forget about some basic tenets of Christian ethics. After a season of division in our broader social culture and within the Church, maybe we’ve allowed “the devil a foothold” as Paul describes in Ephesians 4:27. That foothold shapes our orientation toward others and toward the world.
The Reverend Dr. Mike Pearson recently reminded me that Paul, and Psalm 4:4 that Paul references, does not say that anger is sin. It specifically makes room for our feelings. The admonishment from Paul is about what we do with that anger and, ultimately, how we treat others. This is the foundation of Christian ethics. When we are pressed by others, do we respond as if we only have hope in strength to win the argument, the fight… the skirmish… the battle… the war? Or, do we respond with the trust in the way of Jesus?
Paul’s reference to grieving the Holy Spirit is helpful here. Through the Holy Spirit, God seeks to transform us into the image of Christ. In Galatians, Paul references the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives (5:22-23). If we deny that work of love and joy and peace and patience and the others in our lives, surely we grieve the Holy Spirit. If we choose “bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander” (Eph. 4:31), surely grieve the Holy Spirit.
What is more formative in our lives? The Holy Spirit? Or the algorithm?
Prayer:
Gracious God who forgives, grant us grace to guard the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives pricking our hearts when then devil is getting a foothold through anger so that we might reveal Christ to this world, in whose name we pray and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit now and forever. Amen.
The Reverend Dr. Brian Miller is Vice President for External and Church Relations at Huntingdon College and an ordained elder in the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church
