Melissa Wiginton: Down with Twitter
I am one of the youngest Baby Boomers. I squeaked in, but still affiliated with the tradition whose canon includes The Graduate (“Plastics”), “Never trust anyone over 30” (a saying of The Movement. Google it.) and the ERA (the most obscure of all). But I see now that perhaps I am no young iconoclast. First, I am no longer young. Second, we were about changing the bad old ways, not rebelling against the new and the cool. And now there is Twitter.
Twitter allows instantaneous transmission of 140 character messages as a simple way to keep people connected. You can write messages for your followers or you can be a follower of another person (often a celebrity) on Twitter. You can follow anyone from Larry King to your best friend from high school (fyi., tag “yourmom” is taken.)
I recently heard a preacher say that his congregation has a designated Tweeter (Twitterer?) for each worship service. Lots of his people twitter during worship, but one person is assigned to tweet whatever pops into his or her head. I really don’t want to know whatever pops into someone else’s head as a sermon is being preached, a prayer prayed or a song sung. Clearly, I did not understand, but not wanting to criticize (see Bob Dylan: “The Times They Are A Changin’”), I asked several younger people present about this.
They said there should be some limits. One should not twitter during the reading of the Gospel, for example. But otherwise it is cool. I said I thought it was rude. But apparently that’s a “generational thing” (Code for “Get over it”?). Some young pastors want to posts tweets on a screen where everyone can see them during worship, I guess to connect by knowing what others are thinking. One said, “You know our generation. We want our voices heard.”
Now, I have learned a few things along the way and one is this: We all want our voices heard. But self-expression is what happens when we tweet. Being heard happens when we listen. It’s not the same thing.
I know young adults are talking to each other about these matters--asking questions about how technology shapes us, most frequently making a case for its power for good. I know too that some young adults attend to how they use technology: some practice a discipline of publicly unplugging for days of family time or for quiet. I know Boomer pastors who don’t, who couldn’t, do that.
What I don’t know is where and how we (older folks like me and younger folks bred with technology) have an honest theological, reflective and mutually transforming dialogue about . . . well, about anything. 140 character messages don’t bring out my best self. I get snarky and caustic. Maybe I could learn. But do I have to Tweet in order to have credibility in genuine conversation? Do they have a saying, “Never trust anyone who doesn’t twitter?”
You know my generation. We think we will always be young, hip, even prophetic. But we won’t be (have you seen Dennis Hopper advertise for retirement planning?). I just hope we can figure out how to stay in the conversation without having to rely solely on our thumbs. Younger people—especially many of the younger pastors I know—have interesting and important things to say; things I want to talk with them about. Just not 140 characters at a time.
Melissa Wiginton is Vice President for Ministry Programs and Planning at the Fund for Theological Education.
counter-perspective
I entirely share your reluctance about Twitter Melissa. Here's a counter perspective recently offered: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR200906....
Great article with an overly provocative title...
"But self-expression is what happens when we tweet. Being heard happens when we listen. It’s not the same thing."
This gets at the heart of the matter, and I think is drowned out under the blaring title of this post.
I tweet everyday and find Twitter to be an amazing tool to better my understanding of what's going on in the world around me. This said, I have never had a deep meaningful conversation/listening experience with someone where I felt The Spirit present in anything other than a face to face conversation.
Twitter, like e-mail, and the telephone before it, places a technological limitation on the nuance of human interaction.
But like e-mail and the telephone, I think that we humans will adapt to this new form of communication in our own unique way.
The main point
The gist of Melissa's post seems to be that we ought to be able to have a conversation about such things as, for example, liturgical theology (regarding which there is no more important debate) without being dismissed as Luddite. Despite the title (which I suspect the author did not choose), the point of the post is that those of us over 40 are not the enemy, and many like Melissa have spent their entire adult life magnifying the voices of young people in the church and society. It is unfortunate that one can be "on the side of angels" for a lifetime, and be too easily dismissed for their perspective on technology.
Haddon, I suspect that you are right that humans will "adapt to this new form of communication", yet there is a long history of Christians discerning and resisting cultural forms that are not consistent with the beauty of the gospel. Does the Twitter phenomenon demand such resistance? Probably not--especially in such contexts as the Iranian revolution. Does it demand reasoned and prayerful discernment--especially around such things as its use in worship? Absolutely.
Question for Haddon
Please. I really do want to understand. How does Twitter "better (your) understanding of what's going on in the world?"
And I have a question for Haddon
Bless him for picking a blogfight here. What do you have against titlers? Perhaps you've heard they're supposed to draw attention to an article? And that they might even be aware of the irony of condemning one form of social networking with another?
Answers from Haddon
1. I do a lot of tech/computer work for a living. Almost every day I learn of a new "trick of the trade" on Twitter that I probably wouldn't have uncovered if not for Twitter. These tweets also lead to eye-opening discussions (albeit 140 characters or less) with the Tweeters responsible. Therefore Twitter betters my understanding about what's going on in the world.
What just happened in Iran is another story, but I think it also very clearly shows how the use of Twitter makes us all aware of what was/is going on, on the ground, in Iran. Understand?
2. The brash title does not fit with the humble spirit of the post. I don't read Ms. Wiginton's words as a condemnation of Twitter, but more as a clarification about the limits of Twitter in worship and religious discernment. Unfortunately, I think a lot of Tweeple who see the title, might not read it because they will pre-judge the content as being just another Luddite waxing poetic about the good old days... Which, of course, couldn't be further from the point of this piece.
Theology of attention
As a younger person who went to seminary with Melissa, I identify with her desire for deeper conservations over instantaneous ones. I understand that we live in the age of the soundbite and, for better or worse, the Tweet, but it seems to me that the church is one of the few communities in our culture that has the capacity to carry on sustained conversations over time. This grants the church the opportunity, if not responsibility, to engage in substantive cultural criticism precisely because of its history. Worship is an integral part of that conversation. Instead of filling our worship with soundbites that seem to endorse the attention deficit disorder of younger generations, perhaps the church should challenge them to develop something akin to what ecumenical mission leader Max Warren once called "a theology of attention".
Down with Twitter! (as seen on TV)
http://www.hulu.com/watch/75638/the-tonight-show-with-conan-obrien-twitt...
http://www.hulu.com/watch/76852/the-tonight-show-with-conan-obrien-twitt...
http://www.hulu.com/watch/78632/the-tonight-show-with-conan-obrien-twitt...
tweeting
I so agree with you about tweeting. Why do people think we are interested in the smallest thing that they do? I have enough trouble keeping up with my own life, without having to keep tabs on someone else's.
Carolyn Whisenhunt Wilder
Down with Twitter
@ Steve Porter on the theology of attention...I completely agree with you. If there was ever one place that I would say "do not tweet", it would be during worship service and particularly during the sermon. That is a self-reflective time on how to apply the Word of God in YOUR life and as such, any communication should be between you and God, not with those who are following you on Twitter. Enough is enough. I say it is time to draw the line and shut out the world so you can focus on God and His word! Amen.
Couldn't agree more
Steve and Terri thanks for your amening and deepening of Melissa's point. I do wonder then how Twitter can help the work we do in the church? I have the same suspicions of it that ya'll do, but also have a sense that it can be a resource for faithfulness. Not in worship, agreed. But then how?
I was also at that event. I
I was also at that event.
I don't think that it's rude to twitter during a service.
I do think it's rude for FTE to invite a prominent young pastor to preach at their event, and then to have its VP bad-mouthing him in a blog.
It's a small world... especially among young leaders. I didn't respond at the time because the pastor asked me not to. But please do us a favor and have a bit of respect.
Curious
What an odd comment. Melissa Wiginton doesn't identify the event. You do, and then you speak as though FTE sent her to criticize a guest (thereby opening up the person's identity where she had protected it), as though she might not have an opinion of her own separate from the organization's. This is a deeply contested issue in the church at present, and surely she, like you, can weigh in on it, and do so with clarity and passion and wit, as she's done so here.
The identity wasn't
The identity wasn't protected. That's the point. There are very few Generation X pastors talking about their churches, and even fewer talking about Twitter. Most of us knew exactly who the blogger was talking about.
I just disagree entirely
It was a lot better protected before. It's legitimate for you to take up for this person, whoever he or she was (and outside the group you're talking about, people still don't know who--this was, presumably, an invite-only event, so not actually public). But it's also legitimate for Melissa to draw out a position that's not limited to a single figure on a single occasion, but commonly expressed, and one that can be disagreed with vigorously with perfect integrity. For example, Duke hosted Rob Bell recently (among others) at our Convocation, and for weeks the campus has been debating what he said, with some strong conviction in either direction. No one has said 'You can't say that because we hosted him.' On the contrary. I've spoken at Lilly events before, and if someone didn't hate what I said, then I wouldn't have said anything worth saying.
Post new comment