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Surf Your Values
Web, Christians are often persuaded to challenge the relevance of
Christ’s teachings or other biblical truths.
This plays out in our home life with hundreds of TV channels and
more websites than we could possibly visit. Our culture tells us that
if you don ’t like what you’re watching, just change the channel or
surf somewhere else. However, advertisers deliberately place subtle
temptations where they know they will be most effective at leading
us to cross boundaries, resulting in integrity theft. So if you want
to go somewhere or do something online that you know is wrong,
society offers freedom to adults to create a new character that is not
a Christian and let that avatar go “in your place.” You can partici
pate as an observer who is only “seeing what others are doing” or
change your role or even adopt a totally new online identity. One
compromise leads to another until we lose our virtual integrity.
How can Christians counter this downward spiral?
One way is to overtly identify yourself as a Christian online. There
are many scriptures to back this up. “Trust in the
L o r d
with all your
heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways ac
knowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”51Jesus said,
“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge
him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before
men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.”52
Being an authentic Christian in cyberspace surely doesn’t mean
flaunting your beliefs, bragging about your faith, condemning oth
ers online, witnessing in sports chat rooms, or placing virtual bum
per stickers all over the Internet. Nor does it mean announcing
to everyone online that you’re a Christian. But using offline life
as a guide, a Christian label can affect your outlook and others’
expectations.
The Sermon on the Mount challenges us to be salt and light in
the world. It means being a humble, patient listener. Yes, people will
watch your online actions. Colleagues will hold you accountable to
a higher standard at work. If your identity is in Christ, you will surf
differently. You will apply questions like “What would Jesus do?” in
difficult circumstances. Your goals will be different.
Just as playing fun games offline sometimes includes play-acting
as others, so in cyberspace, we sometimes will act as imaginary
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