When Black Panther actress Letitia Wright spoke candidly about the conflict between her faith and personal beliefs, it raised important questions about how Christians treat one another. Maxine Harrison asks whether our eagerness to defend the truth sometimes causes us to forget the importance of love and compassion.
Letitia Wright attending the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Contributor: AFF
Black Panther actress Letitia Wright recently appeared on an episode of Paloma Faith’s podcast, speaking about how her religious beliefs and personal beliefs are ‘always’ in conflict and how she often feels as though she’s not allowed to be complex, leaving little room for human error. Without disclosing exactly which aspects of her life are in conflict, Letitia shared how the online trolling she has received has included comments as awful as claims that she deserves to die. In a world where people are so quick to react, it begs the question: do Christians need to take more time to pause and reflect rather than rushing to rebuke people online?
It’s no secret that, as Christians, we are called to speak the truth.
It’s no secret that, as Christians, we are called to speak the truth. We worship the living truth, Jesus. But the Bible encourages us to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) and to care about how it will be received. There seems to be a rise in YouTube channels solely dedicated to rebuking members of the body of Christ. The problem isn’t so much whether we should rebuke, but rather how it is done. When you only look for negative things to pick out in people, rather than lovingly guiding them towards the truth, you come across more like a Pharisee than Jesus.
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The reality is that making absolute judgements about people online, especially when you don’t have a relationship with them, means you’re only piecing together the parts of their story available to you. This makes it easy to misjudge them. You could miss nuances of a person’s life that you wouldn’t know about unless you were doing life with them. While the Bible says we can make righteous judgements, we have to be careful about how quickly we do so and the boldness with which we speak, especially when we have no relationship with the person involved.
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If you feel led to reach out online to a fellow believer in Christ whom you haven’t met before, it should be something you strongly feel God is calling you to do, and your words should be delivered with love and caution rather than haste. Perhaps send them a private message first or, if commenting on a post, consider carefully how you express your concern.
The Bible encourages us to be quick to listen and slow to speak
The Bible encourages us to be quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:19). So, even when there is genuine concern, leading with curiosity rather than assumptions allows you to hear the context behind someone’s actions. This approach may actually challenge some of the assumptions you have made about them. If you really care about the gospel and the person, rather than simply winning an argument, lead with love and questions rather than judgement.
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As a journalist, I am sometimes tasked with writing articles about celebrities. And while I am all for free speech, I try to leave room in the articles I write for the fact that I do not know the full context of someone’s life. Therefore, I try to be measured in the opinions I express online when it comes to people I do not know personally. We have to balance free speech with social responsibility and consider how our words can affect others, especially in light of the tragic death of Professor Jason Arday.
Addressing the truth doesn’t always have to involve explicitly calling out individuals in public. For example, there are Christian YouTube channels that speak more generally about topics of concern within the body of Christ, using scripture to support their arguments without always naming the individuals involved. This highlights that there are various ways to offer correction, both implicitly and explicitly, and we should ask God for guidance on which approach to take on a case-by-case basis.
The danger of being quick to condemn is that it can leave people feeling isolated, as Letitia mentioned in the podcast, and could even lead them to turn away from the Church rather than towards Jesus.
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