Principles for Christian Political EngagementSýnishorn

2- Be careful to not bear false witness.

Part of being a faithful witness is also thinking through the lens of how we are representing Jesus to the unbelieving world. Our main purpose as the people of God is to bear witness to the reality of God. Before posting anything political on social media we should ask ourselves how this will be perceived by people who don’t know Jesus. Is this going to give them a clearer picture of who God is or is this going to distort their view of him? Again, this doesn’t mean we don’t speak up about kingdom issues, but it does mean we should think deeply before speaking.

In the post-truth age of social media, everyone can be a self-proclaimed expert on any topic. People can hear something on TikTok from a person they’ve never met and allow it to change their thinking on a particular topic. This is not only illogical, but it’s also harmful to society as a whole. We can get in echo chambers of false information and begin declaring loudly on social media false claims. Deuteronomy clearly prohibits this type of activity. (Deuteronomy 20:16) We must recover the practice of checking our sources. Before believing or sharing a truth claim, we should ask ourselves if the source and the claim are credible.

How will our claims of Jesus be perceived by people who don’t yet believe if we are consistently posting conspiracy theories and doing it in a way that is contrary to the way of Jesus outlined in the previous point? It’s my conviction that if we “win” a culture war, yet lose the souls of millions because we did not bear faithful witness, we lose the most important war.