“Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing” – Thoughts on Leaving an Online Discussion Forum
I recently left an online discussion hosted by a Lutheran group. I have left it before, only to come back, like a moth attracted to a flame, but this time I’m gone for good. In fact, I’ve found in the last six months or so my interest in participating in discussions online has greatly diminished and frankly, when it comes to Lutheran discussions, I have come to a point where I find them to be enormously boring. It strikes me that, and I know this is not fair, entirely, but often it strikes me that they are basically the same twelve people talking about the same six topics. I used to be really “into” internet conversations. I was like the guy in the cartoon.
The forum I left most recently was poorly moderated, a major downfall of many fora, and as a result, the discussions were always overwhelmed by really ridiculous off-topic comments. Now there are some bright spots and every once in a while you find a few salient and sensible remarks from some more sober-minded pastors, but mostly, it is nothing more than ongoing chattering and logomachy. I cite it as but an example of what a horrendous waste of time much of what goes on, on the Internet, amounts to. Since weening myself away from this kind of chatter, I’m reading more, enjoying other activities and find that I’m just more “balanced” in my points of view.
It reminds me of what the Bard wrote in MacBeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Frankly, I enjoy far more the ‘real time’ commenting I find on Facebook, and continue to enjoy blogging and reading a few blogs, but even here, I’ve found myself following fewer and fewer blog sites as well.
I’m still pretty much convinced that the humorist Dave Barry was right when he said once, “Internet conversations are just like CB radio used to be, only with a whole lot more typing.”
Am I alone in feeling burned out on the narcissism and logomachy that seems to dominate online conversations? And how about how some people use Twitter and Facebook? As one who was deeply involved in them, for too long, I can tell you it sure feels good to get away from it and stop caring what silly conversations are going on, and never ending, online. It is just boring.
Pastor,
A couple of years ago, after tremendous disenchantment with my contemporary worship, hip pastor, 5-points to a better marriage Reformed church, and months of painful deliberation, I quit going to church. But, I didn’t quit reading my Bible or praying. I begin looking for challenging reference material to accompany my daily reading and happened to pick up some Luther. I also went on-line and begin frequenting some Lutheran blogs and forums. I began listening to Lutheran radio. And then it hit me, I had been Lutheran all along but had been trapped in Evangelicalism. While I live in a part of the country known for liberal unity churches and secular humanism, I am attending a faithful confessional Lutheran Church, and am scheduling some time with my pastor for catechesis and personal confession/absolution. In short, while becoming increasingly Lutheran I need the encouragement I receive from blogs like this and certain Lutheran forums. I have to say that the signal to noise ratio on many Lutheran forums and blogs is annoying but I need to keep hearing from confessional Lutherans what it means to live and work and think and love and grow under the Solas of the Reformation.
So, while I appreciate your sense of burn-out, I also want you to know that there are some out here that look forward to each and every post. While the logomachy is bewildering at times, I have also learned to draw very clear lines around doctrines that I never would’ve clung to so dearly in my entire experience as a Christian as I do the Lutheran Confessions along with clear Law and Gospel preaching and Word and Sacrament divine service.
Thank you! Take a mental health break if need be but keep sharing with us. Like the song says, “You can go, but be back soon.”
Blessings!
I’ve been taken in by online discussions and have come away convinced that I don’t have anything to add….certainly nothing that hasn’t been said a thousand times before. My wife makes light of my online and reading habits, but in recent times I’ve been reading the classics. There doesn’t seem to be anything comparable in online discussion. The Bible (of course), Luther, Plato’s Dialogues, Bonhoeffer, Milton, Augustine, Tennyson, etc. Perhaps I’ll never have much to add, maybe I’ll have to settle for what the greats already said and leave the rest to the smarties commenting on the blogs. With all that said, I still love Cyberbrethren.
From your description of this list, Rev McCain, I’m surprised you managed to stay on it so long. Sartre said, “hell is other people”, and Sasse followed that up with “hell is a place where the only reading matter is church newspapers”; but perhaps hell will really consist of endless re-hashes of theological arguments with the same 12 people. After all, the Devil oves to argue theology! O Lord, deliver us from the ‘rabies theologorum’!
While your characterization is, in many cases, spot on, it is also not true in other circumstances. While no one gains from the seemingly incessant snarky chatter of some of the forums and some of the threads, there are many great moments of theological eloquence in which minds are changed. I have gained several friends through this media and have heard the personal stories of those who are encouraged by faithful voices in the free for all that is internet forums and their like. I do little on facebook and find that as a medium such social networking can be even more prone to nastiness and excess. I, for one, am sad to see you go.
I have never noticed any minds changed on the one forum I recently left. Just the same small little group of people chattering on endlessly about the same topics, and, in my opinion, wasting a tremendous amount of time.
Pastor McCain – what you are overlooking is the people who followed your efforts in that “Lutheran” forum and learned a great deal from you and the few other confessional Lutherans who daily struggled with verbage bordering on the absurb. What became very clear was the paradigm which imprisons the liberal theologians; they simply can not listen to truth when presented to them. While I can empathize with the frustration dealing with those who have no truths to expouse, I will miss your clear lutheran confession (and this will be their loss as well.) Thank you for the effort and time; I, for one, did appreciate your efforts.
Peace,
Dennis
@ptmccain
Neal Postman called it “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” You are right–it is a waste of time. And it bothers me that a whole bunch of our younger generation is involved in this.
I think I know the site you are referring to. The posts make absolutely no sense even with my trusty liberal decoder.
…it’s not hard to quit, I’ve done it lots of times
1. Forums are great for bouncing your ideas off of other people, and for making new connections between ideas, that you otherwise would never have found.
2. Forums are great for meeting and making friends with like-minded people.
Serious, rigorous debate is really hard to come by, though. Good moderating policy and enforcement is key. Even then, it’s tough.
It’s easy to get sucked into the inane and destructive stuff, but I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water. There is a lot of benefit to be had from forums, twitter, facebook — but, in my opinion, the main benefit is in making one-on-one social connections, and not in the one-upmanship type of debate that is so common.
Disclaimer: I don’t know which forum you’re referring to, but I do own several non-Lutheran forums with 500-1000+ posts a day.
I can appreciate why you left a forum that had the problems you mentioned. There is a point when one has to “shake the dust from their sandals” and move on. Folks have to learn to be discerning in what forums they get involved with as they can be harmful on many levels. When you see recurrent “arguments to emotion” returned against proofs over and over, that is one hint to move on. You also have to beware those who become argumentative because you refuse to accept faulty arguments. I have seen that get out of hand and people get hurt. I know pastors and laity who have been threatened … even at their front doors. Also, you can’t spend your life online. That is easy to do and is one reason why I left a while back.
I don’t see any value in trying to witness to liberal (Lutheran) theologians on certain blogs. Their minds are made up. Many of them cannot wait to get on the forum to argue with you. It is a waste of time talking to them. Shake then dust off your sandals and move on……
The problem is …..if you leave one (useless) Lutheran discussion forum, where else on the internet do you go to find a more productive one?
>> I don’t see any value in trying to witness to liberal (Lutheran) theologians on certain blogs.
I ceased in the year 1764 to believe that one can convince one’s opponents with arguments printed in books. It is not to do that, therefore, that I have taken up my pen, but merely so as to annoy them, and to bestow strength and courage on those on our own side, and to make it known to the others that they have not convinced us.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799)
I find communication in forums very difficult. I am trying to earn a degree online and find that the reality of it is I’m paying $1500 a class to write a paper and read a textbook, because real discussion is almost impossible. Good thing that I’ve had the real classes before, and am just retaking the classes because Masters level classes don’t transfer.
I rarely read most blogs anymore….even my own.
“I don’t see any value in trying to witness to liberal (Lutheran) theologians on certain blogs…”
If CFW Walther had the same idea, Der Lutheraner would not have been born, the large Lutheran presence in the US would have remained captive to the Americanizing elements that sought to diminish Lutheran identity, and the LCMS would have not grown nearly as much as it did. Engagement is always a frustrating, often risky, and seems likely to get on the one nerve you have left. But not engaging means leaving the marketplace to those whose ideas you reject. I know the frustration but the impact of engagement can never be measured simply by the frustration factor…
Discussion forums can also be a tremendous harvest field. God used one such forum to help bring me from generic evangelicalism to confessional Lutheranism, and I am profoundly thankful. On the flip side, I have also left discussion groups because of the very type of problems you describe. Recently, my approach has been to refuse to spend my time preaching to the choir and arguing with those who are out of tune, and instead concentrate on reaching out to those who are searching. They are out there. The fields are white to harvest.
Pastor Peters: The LCMS was a powerhouse in CFW Walther’s time. Do you see any evidence that the “Sleeping Giant” (LCMS) is awakening anytime soon.
J.L.: Your testimony is encouraging. I certainly hope there are more people out there like you.
This sort of thing happens no matter the subject. In 1999 I was watching comments fly back and forth on “cyberdojo” much in a similar sort of way to what you mention.
I suppose it depends on if its an “iron sharpens iron” group or a “let me cut you with my sharp iron” group. I’ve found that church council and voter’s meetings are not too dissimilar either.
Randy
@James
I think that if we can get the message out about the treasure we have in confessional Lutheranism, we will see a flood of people like me. The trick is getting the word out. If I hadn’t been for internet discussion forums, I would have had no idea what Lutherans believed, taught, and confessed. In my own family, my sister-in-law and her husband have recently gone from 20 or so years in the Vineyard Churches to a very conservative and traditional Anglican denomination. People are reaching the end of evangelicalism and finding that there’s nothing there. They are starving for the Word and sacraments. I see evidence all the time that a very great shift is coming. Thanks be to God! We just have to get the word out!
Please note: I’m all for getting the word out, it’s kind of what I do! But…my post is speaking about the incessant arguing/debating and trivial pursuit that consumes a lot of comment-wars on Lutheran fora, etc. It’s not helpful, just a waste of time.
@ptmccain
Yes, and I truly appreciate your efforts! I do understand the type of thing your post was directed toward. My response was really to James when he said that he hoped there were more people out there like me. I agree with you that the other kind of internet bickering (which you were addressing) is a complete waste of time. Not only that, I think that it can drive people away in frustration. It actually did drive me away me several times in the course of my searching. Fortunately, God’s Holy Spirit kept drawing me back to His Word – not always because of the people in the forums, but quite honestly sometimes in spite of them.
I am familiar with the Lutheran forum where Pastor McCain used to post. Nothing good came out of all the snark and nonsense from the liberal Lutherans. Hard to believe that anyone decided to change denominations based on that forum.
Why bother witnessing to the diehard liberal Lutherans when the non-denominational should be our focus. If time and resources are limited, then we need to shift our priorities. Where is the LCMS’ version of Rob Bell when you need him??
J.L. wrote: I see evidence all the time that a very great shift is coming.”
If I could only be that fly on the wall and listen to what those non-denominational people were saying. I am certain that the traditional Anglican denomination did not have to use Church Growth Movement techniques in order to attract those members of your family. I hope the LCMS is paying attention and is poised to ride the tide when it comes!
Pastor McCain,
Just think, you’ll have more time to read the TLSB!!