No man is an island

This little bit of wisdom is quite old yet becoming more and more true with each passing year. We are no longer people part of just a family, just a state, just a nation, but people part of the world. And with that reality comes, for those of us who call ourselves followers of God, an increased responsibility to think about the rest of the world. Many people have much to say about our social, political, and economic responsibilities, so I won't get in to that.

What I do want talk about is our internet responsibility. We who call ourselves Christians represent Christ to the WORLD via the internet, but we aren't taking anything larger than our own small communities into consideration when we put stuff out there for the rest of the world to see. This may be an extreme example, but it illustrates the point: I was invited to officially "become a fan" of prayer via facebook, and the picture for the page is a woman in a spaghetti strapped tank top kneeling at a toilet. Now, whoever posted that picture I'm sure intended to convey that we can pray anywhere, anytime. You don't have to go to church to talk to God. I agree. The first problem is that it appears at first glance that the woman is throwing up in the toilet and thus that the page is mocking prayer.

But can I give you an idea of what a Muslim viewing that picture will think? First, they do not even wear jewelry bearing the name of God into the bathroom because the bathroom is dirty, religiously unclean. So the idea of someone kneeling to pray over the thing that they sit on to defecate is absolutely blasphemous. Then there's the fact that the woman is wearing a shirt that shows both her back and her shoulders. This is something only a woman of questionable character would be seen in, and no woman of faith would bow to pray in such clothes. But this is the picture that a Christian chose to represent prayer. To a Muslim, you have just said that you believe it is acceptable to come before God defiled, with no thought of His holiness or purity. Regardless of the fact that I believe we can pray anytime, anywhere, in whatever clothes we have, I am appalled that this is the image being put out there as representative of the Christian attitude toward prayer.

This is just one example of the many, many things American Christians put on the internet without considering how most of the world will interpret them. I'm not saying that we should change everything about how we dress or talk or behave, and even if we did, there's no one set of rules that would translate to all cultures and faiths. I merely want to suggest that it's past time for us to open our eyes and take other ways of thinking into account.

If we care about the way the others think of God and we truly believe that others should be able to see Christ in us, we cannot live (and therefore communicate online) as if we exist on a Christian-or even American- island.