Bob Scheiffer, internet skepticBy Neil Earle
It’s now official – social media (twitter, instagram, facebook, snap chat, etc.) are making us more anxious.
It’s not just FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. It’s that the international nervous system is now susceptible to every nervous jitter and twitter along the high tech jungle telegraph that is the Internet.
Bob Scheiffer, internet skepticCBS-TV veteran reporter Bob Scheiffer told his “Face the Nation” audience on February 8 that the Internet’s big flaw is “it has no editor” and/or fact-checker – every respectable news outlet has that. The result he said is that ideas and wrong ideas “spread like crabgrass and are often as poisonous.”
Of course it goes without saying that there are many beneficial uses to the Internet. But…on February 5 we were treated to a paradigmatic display of electronic overkill when a Twitter from ISIS (the cut-throat terrorist gang) claimed that a Jordanian bombing run killed an American hostage. Result? Even mighty CNN came to heel and felt duty-bound to report the story. So this is not only a “what’s up” moment for the Internet but for our vaunted news agencies as well. They were skeptical about the source, it is true, but felt duty-bound to report the unwelcome tidings (and beat other outlets to the punch).
And all this is a sign of the times. Smart-phones are incredibly useful Astra Taylor reports in “The Peoples Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age” and nobody wants to stand against real progress but…the drawbacks are coming home to roost. Not too long ago our culture critics were complaining about shallow “bumper sticker theology” and “Baskin-Robbins philosophy” but bumper stickers don’t fly across cyberspace.
Like everyone else, there are some real issues here for Christians. Shrinking privacy, the trivializing of knowledge and the crowding out of the wisdom we need to make sense of our lives is at the mercy of “bytes.”
But the fact is that what risk assessment expert Gavin De Becker warned about just after September 11, 2001 has come to pass – fear now has many more delivery systems with which to assail us. And De Becker wrote “Fear Less: Real Truth about Risk, Safety, and the Security in a Time of Terrorism” to shed some much needed perspective in a new age of stifling fear. We’ve quoted his helpful book before but some of his points include:
It is a matter of perspective and the constant drumbeat of 24 hour news seems almost designed to keep us on edge. But Christians have hope. In our case our wise God has already catalogued, named and circumscribed the ultimate fear of violent death. It’s all in piece of writing our ancestors knew well – Psalm 91. Let’s take a look. Even terror is mentioned in there.
The psalm opens with some engaging and positive declarative sentences. “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” Most Christians have such a shelter. It is called our prayer closet where we can pour out anything anytime to our great God. Oh, what relief it is, as the ad says. That’s why “we can say of the Lord: He is my Refuge and my Fortress, My God, in whom I trust” (verses 1-2).
Can anyone imagine anyone in the First Millennium BC talking about Zeus and Marduk that way? “Yes Marduk loves me…?” Of course not. The gods of Egypt were hideous repulsive fantasies with wolf heads and lion feet. Israel’s God was described in tender loving terms in Psalm 91:4, “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.” Jesus played to that image in Luke 21 when he wept over the wicked, murderous city of Jerusalem whom he wished he could shelter as a hen does its chicks.
But this is a hard real world and Psalm 91’s next image is of God as a Shield and Buckler – bronze and iron for facing tough realities. God’s word covers it all. Verses 3-6 lists seven perils that faced people in that day – and now. Pestilence comes first – does EBOLA ring a bell? – and verse 5 is eloquent: “You will not fear the terror by night.” Terror by night. Oh, yes, this hits home. Growing up in the 1950s I remember reading about nuclear attack and hence had to wonder when I heard planes flying overhead, an air base just 10 miles way: is this the one that will drop the Bomb?
We know that most of our fears are not real but it’s the fear of the unknown and the lack of control that modern living induces with its fast pace that makes us vilnerable to feeding on even our legitimate worries. We now have supersensitive electronic technology to keep us awake and fretful if we let it. As De Becker writes, “focusing on what is not known is precisely what newsreaders and their producers do most of the time.”
Not that we don’t need to watch the new to stay informed but there is a balance in everything and we are not to live at the whim of every speculation rumor, supposition and conjecture. At my house we turn the channel. Often.
“Boston Strong” – a healthy responseThe second half to the Psalm is introduced by verse 7 and 8 where a good dose of Hebrew hyperbole is announced to set off and balance the fears of “the arrow that flies by day, the pestilence that walks at noonday.” Ten thousand falling at your right hand would have conveyed to the Israelites Gods mighty deliverance at the time of the Exodus and that is something we can all meditate on with profit – God hates injustice. The wicked get their come-uppance even in this life. God does not tolerate their evil forever. Ask Adolph Hitler, Idi Amin or Saddam Hussein next time you see them. That’s modern-day hyperbole but it makes the point.
Psalm 91:9-13 is a fairly famous piece of writing. Bible readers will note that this is the section the Devil used to tempt Jesus with in the temptation in the wilderness. “Jump off this pinnacle and God will protect you” the Devil told Jesus, quoting scripture. But Jesus knew testing God like that is sin – the sin of presumption. The lesson for us is to take whatever precautions we need to take as we go through life and not just leave things complacently in the air (see box). Even this promise is conditional upon “making God our refuge” thus verse 9 reiterates verse 1, the way poets and musicians like to repeat things for emphasis.
If we were perfect in trust we would have no debilitating fears, maybe, but who is that perfect? And there are even uses for fear – Jesus experienced godly fear in the garden of Gethsemane and Paul showed up in Corinth “shell-shocked” from his treatment in Macedonia and his fears and anxieties drove him to God even more (1 Corinthians 3:1-4). Great success in Corinth was one result. Fear can drive us to our knees and that is one good thing hat can be said about it.
Finally, this marvelous Psalm 91 ends with God himself speaking. Just as there were seven threats enumerated at the beginning – and thus expressing the comprehensiveness of all terror – so there are seven “I wills” in verses 14-16.
Read them through. They are exquisitely comforting and encouraging. “I will protect him,” “I will be with him in trouble.” “I will deliver him and honor him.” The psalm ends with the one word that fits every occasion – “salvation.” Salvation in Hebrew was yeshua which became a man’s name “Joshua” which in the NT is translated “Jesus." So Jesus is in this psalm both in the negative challenge Satan futilely threw at him in verses 11 and 12 and in the resounding conclusion spoken by Yahweh God himself.
What a hope. What a reassurance. What a thing to mediate upon as the hosts of Twitter trivia and Internet anxiety try to do their worst! We have a place to hide. Thank God for Psalm 91.