📱Discourse Whiplash & Social Media

When the conversation shifts and I can’t keep up.

Last week, I published another RNS piece that I shared here, called “Evangelicals must stop consulting themselves for guidance.” In that vein, I was trying (as I have before) to contextualize the current push from elite evangelicals to obscure just how deeply troubling the current state of evangelicalism is - and how they have rejected people who tried to reform their movement from within many times before.

At the same time, it’s been difficult to situate the current State of Discourse surrounding “deconstruction,” the current catch-all evangelical bogeyman. The Gospel Coalition has published an article saying it shouldn’t “be redeemed.” Christianity Today’s current cover story addresses the subject (albeit without talking to anyone; it is an opinion piece). Skillet’s singer wants to “wage war” on it.

There’s also an endless conversation happening about whether “exvangelical” is a useful term to describe where one is personally. And all of these various things jumble into one single timeline, talking about very different things—or at the very least, the same thing but with very different lenses.

It’s a lot to take in, and I don’t always process it well. I feel my anxiety tighten my chest, I feel my codependent tendencies kick in, I feel the tension build in my shoulders. I feel my CNS become enmeshed in the words and feelings of others. And it’s then that I come back to the passage I quoted and sketched out above.

Because while I intellectually know my own intentions and can accept responsibility for my own role in harm & being harmed (I am reading adrienne marie brown’s We Will Not Cancel Us right now, which is where I learned this language and framing)…

…and while I know that #exvangelical as a hashtag has an SEO use…

…and “exvangelical” is valuable in creating what Corinna Laughlin calls “counter-publics” to “combat” evangelical rhetoric (to use General John Skillet’s metaphor)…

…and I believe “exvangelical” as an identity has limits…

…and I think we need to get better at delineating between cultures, followings, and communities-all of which have different purposes…

…that’s impossible to get across in any single tweet or interaction. It’s simply too much to take in simultaneously, mentally or emotionally. Especially at the speed of twitter.

Reading through some of my weekend posts, I can see how this played out within my own posts to twitter. First I was responding to elite evangelicals:

Blake Chastain @brchastain

If Alisa Childers, TGC, and others want to understand why these conversations are happening outside the church now, it's because historically evangelicals have quashed efforts to have them within the church. I cite many examples in this piece:

religionnews.comEvangelicals must stop consulting themselves for guidance(RNS) — The United States cannot afford to give evangelicalism the benefit of the doubt again, and evangelicals cannot afford to just talk among themselves any longer.

Later, I was trying to respond to evangelical characterizations of “deconstruction:”

Blake Chastain @brchastain

What continues to frustrate me about evangelical framing of the big ol’ deconstruction bogeyman is that it seeks to place those who criticize evangelicalism as hostile outsiders instead of former insiders who changed their minds. It’s a vital distinction.

Then I was trying to frame why, if this is supposedly a “war,” then it is incredibly asymmetrical:

Blake Chastain @brchastain

TGC had $3.26M in income 2020, but I'm glad they keep punching down on people who make content online and piece together income through Patreon and day-jobs.

Then I stumbled across a twitter conversation about folks who were formerly evangelical but don’t relate to or use “exvangelical,” and went deep into my feels:

Blake Chastain @brchastain

Replied to a tweet that asked about people's relation toward the term 'exvangelical' that twitter's home feed recommended, but I deleted it. Not really my place, and honestly it feeds my co-dependent & insecure tendencies.

Then I struggled with how difficult it is to talk about something as massive as the impact of evangelicalism:

Blake Chastain @brchastain

perhaps it's asking too much of any moniker to represent the breadth of human experiences spanning centuries and continents under a dominant religious form. perhaps it's ok to not identify a certain way for your entire life. perhaps more than one thing is true at once.

Then I realized I should recognize when to log off. And that’s ok.

Blake Chastain @brchastain

getting discourse whiplash b/c i can't keep up with the pace of conversation, so it's time to disentangle my nervous system from the internet (log off twitter) ✌🏻

Then I made the sketch above.

These are the sorts of things I am processing as I continue to work on my book and participte in what danah boyd calls “networked publics.” But part of doing so, especially in a point in time where many of us are locally lonely, involves knowing when to step away from these networked publics.

It’s something I’m still learning, at least partially, in public—as these tweets demonstrate.

How do you manage your emotions, expectations, and interactions? Let me know in the Discord or in the comments.