Privacy is of Note
One of the things that influenced the early beginnings of my life in Christ was that Jesus would take these solo moments on the mountain to just chat it up with the Father and let go of what's on his heart. I always wondered even how some of his prayers were recorded, seeing that most of them were private in nature. But I was glad for the insight, and welcomed just that small view of Jesus' private time.
We are in an age of "everything is connected and communicated." And though we have ways to get away more times than ever in the past, that aspect of privacy (even in prayer) has seemed to take a considerable hit. Even to the point that one can make the argument that nothing is private anymore.
Reading a story at ReadWriteWeb about a child whose MySpace and Facebook records were subpoenaed as part of the company's defense against the child's parents. What's interesting about this is not so much the case (which I'll leave for RWW and other sites to discuss), but that privacy is no longer accepted as part of our person, but something that has to be opted into.
With endavors such as Google's Social Graph API, its becoming harder and harder for people to get online and make a space of their own on it. And this is a property of the Net; things in bits and bytes will travel, and will last as long as there are servers to store and eyes to see them on.
So how does one address this? In some cases people cannot just go offline (though being told a woman is fasting the Internet for Lent was kind of amazing to me). How does one measure what things should be online versus those that aren't?
I'll give you some rules I walk by, and most of them come from a different perspective on Matthew 5-6 and John 17 than what we normally hear:
- Is what you are about to communicate by being online going to benefit you or another
- Is what you are about to communicate something that you don't mind being called into account for years down the line
- Is your benefit for being online to run with the crowd, or are you interested in being salt
- Is being online making you look more like the world when you respond to issues of lust, family, or God's heart for those that have not
- Are you more than a consumer by being online
- Is you being online causing division in the Body, or accounting towards unity and righteousness in Him
These are just some thoughts that most of the time don't figure into what we do online. But if we are going to treat this place as holy, even when we use it as a conversation between God and ourselves online, then we have to understand the gravity of our presence here - God's reputation is at stake.
We are in an age of "everything is connected and communicated." And though we have ways to get away more times than ever in the past, that aspect of privacy (even in prayer) has seemed to take a considerable hit. Even to the point that one can make the argument that nothing is private anymore.
Reading a story at ReadWriteWeb about a child whose MySpace and Facebook records were subpoenaed as part of the company's defense against the child's parents. What's interesting about this is not so much the case (which I'll leave for RWW and other sites to discuss), but that privacy is no longer accepted as part of our person, but something that has to be opted into.
With endavors such as Google's Social Graph API, its becoming harder and harder for people to get online and make a space of their own on it. And this is a property of the Net; things in bits and bytes will travel, and will last as long as there are servers to store and eyes to see them on.
So how does one address this? In some cases people cannot just go offline (though being told a woman is fasting the Internet for Lent was kind of amazing to me). How does one measure what things should be online versus those that aren't?
I'll give you some rules I walk by, and most of them come from a different perspective on Matthew 5-6 and John 17 than what we normally hear:
- Is what you are about to communicate by being online going to benefit you or another
- Is what you are about to communicate something that you don't mind being called into account for years down the line
- Is your benefit for being online to run with the crowd, or are you interested in being salt
- Is being online making you look more like the world when you respond to issues of lust, family, or God's heart for those that have not
- Are you more than a consumer by being online
- Is you being online causing division in the Body, or accounting towards unity and righteousness in Him
These are just some thoughts that most of the time don't figure into what we do online. But if we are going to treat this place as holy, even when we use it as a conversation between God and ourselves online, then we have to understand the gravity of our presence here - God's reputation is at stake.
posted by Antoine @ 2/04/2008 02:39:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Whoa - is it bad grammar week? :-)
who's - whose
steak - stake
Twas a Monday brain freeze; thanks for understanding :)
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