Tim Tebow, Religious Hypocrisy, Social Media and Our Need For Attention
I think a case could be made that the emergence of digital communication and online social media has made religious hypocrisy a more dangerous temptation today than we often recognize. Lee Siegel in his book Against the Machine, discusses how we hide behind false, “phantom” identities on the internet. It’s a medium we think fosters immediacy and authenticity, but in truth it breeds shallowness. It allows us to easily build and present a facade to the world; an image of who we wish to be rather than who we really are. And in the case of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, intimate relationships that peer behind our facades are nearly impossible to foster (despite what so many 16-year-old girls wish to believe). In other words, on the web hypocrisy is not only easy, it is mandatory.
The above passage comes from Skye Jethani’s post at Huff Post Religion about Timm Tebow’s public religiosity. He goes on to ask if Tebow is indeed a hypocrite by ignoring Jesus’ recommendation to pray in private (Matthew 6:5-6). The post then actually morphes into a commentary about the the hidden nature of social media and the seemingly mandatory human need to be noticed and paid attention to.
I actually agree a lot with what Jethani has to say on the nature of social media, which is why I like what Peter Rollins and others have done to counter this potential for social media hypocrisy. By creating an alter ego on twitter, Peter Rollins is able to poke fun while at the same time acknowledging that his online persona is just that, a persona.
While @PeterRollins tweets about his admirable work in the philosophy of religion, updating folks on his blog posts, lecture dates and quoting philosophers like Kierkegaard etc., @RealPeteRollins tells the other side of the story by sharing dirty jokes and shamelessly hocking his books to pay for his nightly indulgence of binge drinking after a seminar.
Hilarious and brilliant!
I have seriously considered ripping off Rollins’ idea because I can not tell you how many times I have felt like leaving snarky (bordering on slightly mean) comments on stupid things people post on facebook. But thankfully, I have restrained myself. Which, now that I think about it, we do in the non-virtual world as well, ALL of the time. We are constantly censoring ourselves throughout the day, constantly filtering our thoughts; sheesh, if we didn’t the world would be a pretty ugly place.
So maybe we are all be hypocrites deep down, but only those who are closest to us would/could ever know it. And that is what makes love so special. The ones who love us know the real us and love us anyway. Of course the one who knows us the best is never far. Jethani quotes the psalmist quite rightly:
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.
Our desire to be known, fully known, is something we cannot easily deny. I think it why Jesus tells his disciples that “whatever you do for the least of these you do for me (Matt 25:40).” Followers of the way are called to give hope to the hopeless and stand up for those who cannot stand. In essence, Christians are to pay attention to those who folks who are ignored. And if this is the case, if we truly embody the words of Jesus, then we can say in confidence that we are surely known by our fruits (Luke 6:44), despite what hypocrisy we may be trying to hide.
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Photo above by Adam Holloway
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