The liturgies of “Mom-stagram” and a need for a better story
I think the closest thing to a full-blown Wild West shootout we have today are the volley of shots fired from parenting-focused social media accounts. Actually, I should be more specific: Christian parenting-focused social media accounts.
A few months ago, a friend shared a post on Instagram from a Christian parenting influencer saying that gentle parenting is dangerous because it teaches our kids not to take their sin seriously and encourages them to trust more in their emotions than the truth of God’s Word.
I recently saw a post from a Christian gentle parenting advocate saying that all “traditional” methods of discipline are contrary to the very heart of Jesus.
And just yesterday I came across a reel from a woman who teaches a class wholly dedicated to exposing the the ways that gentle parenting is “anti-gospel” who said that those who use gentle parenting methods hold the heretical belief that the teachings of Jesus are more authoritative than the rest of Scripture.
And then five seconds after that, I saw a post from a gentle parenting expert who is also a Christian saying that it is “blasphemy” (yes, blasphemy) to believe that a parent represents God’s authority to their kids.
Shooo-ee! We as a group might be a *bit* given to overstatement.
I am not going to address these specific accusations on this post. Mostly because each one is too unbelievably unfair in its own way for me to even know how to begin to respond.
What I’m really interested in is what is going on a layer or two underneath all this vitriol aimed at those who we are united to in Christ. Where do we need the Spirit to bring healing? I’m still processing this (and would love it—like, really, really!—if you’d share your thoughts in the comments or, better yet, over coffee), but here are some things I’ve been ruminating on.
“The medium is the message.”
This is a phrase I had drilled into me in my first communications class in college. The medium—the means, methods, platforms, etc., that we use to communicate with others—not only impacts and shapes the message we are trying to communicate, but sends a message all of its own. I think we must really consider this as we engage with others on social media. These platforms have their own set of rules and incentives and ideas about goodness that shape the messages that are shared, and influence the way we value and evaluate them.
When we share or talk about anything—parenting, faith, the hike we took last weekend, or the amazing meal we had last night—we may intend to share one message, but we must be conscious that our medium—social media, a one-on-one conversation in a coffee shop, a podcast episode, or a sermon on a Sunday morning—is not only impacting that message, but is sending one all of its own.
I suppose I wonder: How is using social media to receive and share parenting advice, insights, encouragement, and opinions shaping the way we talk about it, for good and/or for ill? What unintentional messages are being sent by using that medium?
Weaponizing the gospel.
We must stop weaponizing the gospel and making Jesus the mascot for the outrage d’jour. I have talked about this before on some other topics, and I see the damage this is doing to others and ourselves more clearly than ever.
I have never in my life been told more things that Jesus would like, hate, would or would not do, accept, reject, say or wouldn’t say, is or is not “in the business of” than I have in these recent years. The gospel is a gift and our treasure. We cannot make into a blunt force instrument or perpetual mic drop meant to elbow or shame others into agreement, what God has meant for the healing of our hearts and the entire cosmos.
To call something anti-gospel or blasphemous is gravely serious. To tell a fellow parent that the way they’re parenting will lead them and their children away from the truth of the gospel or the heart of Jesus is something that so few people actually have the insight into that person’s story, relational capital built through demonstrated care, and explicit permission to speak into for each individual person, and yet we do this as casually and easily as sharing a post to your stories that a parenting influencer with an extreme position or blanket statement wrote to no one in particular.
The posture with which we bear the gospel and the name of Christ needs healing. If we are to speak of the gospel of Jesus Christ, let it be with gentleness, joy, reverence, and curiosity about the person we are speaking with, rejecting the temptation to use it as a means to strengthen our own point of view and serve our own purposes. Perhaps this part of what is meant by the solemn commandment to not take the Lord’s name in vain. Spirit, help.
Telling each other The Story.
Children are not yet fully who God made them to be (and neither am I as a grown adult, I hope). But they aren’t only becoming. They’re also already somebody. Somebody with dignity who is welcomed by Jesus, as they currently are. I wonder what might happen if we got really, really good at naming the ways we see the Spirit moving, forming, drawing each other’s kids, the ways they are already caught up in the story of how God is redeeming and renewing all things through his love, and grew less quick to dispense advice.
“His joy is contagious.”
“She has a strong sense of justice, not just for herself, but for the kids on the fringes.”
“When I think about how how he has grown in generosity and tenderness in the past year, I am amazed at what God has done.”
“No, she’s not too loud! God has given her a voice of proclamation, and she is using it!” (This one I overheard walking by the 3-year-old classroom, and it makes me smile every time I think about it.)
“Your teenagers are the most fantastic people. Teach me your ways!”
I wonder, too, what life light spring up if we were willing to encourage those who are investing in the generations of the Church coming up behind them (which is a task that includes the entire Body of Christ, not just those who are parents). What if we were actively looking for the ways the Spirit is working in the lives of the people around us, and pointed them out so we can join him in that work?
“I see how deeply you care about seeing the character of Jesus grow in your kids. It’s so beautiful.”
“Anyone can see how much you genuinely enjoy your children. It really challenges me in a season where connection has felt hard.”
“I feel a little on over my head. Can you pray for me? Can you help me see what I’m missing?”
“You have overcome so much and God has healed so many wounds for you to be the parent that you are. When I watch you with your kids, all I see is God’s grace.”
“When you teach my child about Jesus, it’s so clear that you really believe the Spirit is equipping them to understand who he is. His love radiates from you.”
Here’s something I’ve been turning over in my head: What if we thought of raising kids primarily as a liturgy?
That term can be confusing, but James K.A. Smith, author of “You Are What You Love,” explains:
“‘Liturgy’…is a shorthand term for those rituals that are loaded with an ultimate Story about who we are and what we’re for. They carry within them a kind of ultimate orientation. Think of these liturgies as calibration technologies: they bend the needle of our hearts.”
In another essay, Smith says, “In short, liturgies make us certain kinds of people, and what defines us is what we love.”
A consistent and exclusive diet of parenting content—faith-based or not—that is focused primarily on tactics, methods, and do-this-to-get-that-result, don’t-do-that-to-avoid-this-result teaching, is a liturgy that will give us an appetite for a control that we do not and will never possess, and deforms us in walking by the Spirit. Even if that desire for control is in service of a deeper and very good desire to see our kids grow to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, so often the shame and fear lurking just below the surface feed a misshapen love for control that will make us less than who we were made to be in Christ.
Instead, let’s build a vision of what might be possible if we viewed raising children as a way to point our hearts, not to a false story of control that cannot redeem, but to the Story of the Risen Christ, committing to help each other tell and retell who God is and what he has done in the world and in our lives. Let’s let the good desire to see each other grow into maturity with roots sunk deep into our unshakable belovedness in Christ become a liturgy that invites the Spirit to make the entire Church—our kids included—something together that we could not be separately: the image of Christ in a weary world, bearing witness to him and his glorious kingdom.