In depth | Evangelicals Now

Taking back TikTok for the gospel

Emily Pollok

Church leader David Sims is taking back ground for the gospel on social media – sending Bibles to strangers and seeing people find faith.

“We’ve got to reclaim this back for the Lord,” said the Walsall minister, who hosts live TikTok church on the platform each week. “I think we should be using it and take every opportunity to give reason for the hope that we have.”

editorial

Leaving by X-ample?

Editorial

Across the last few months many Christian organisations and individual evangelicals are among those who have left social media platform X.

Reaction to this has been varied – do Christians have an obligation to be a light in dark places (there are over 600 million on X)? Or is our presence on the platform implicitly condoning what goes on there?

defending our faith

Social media apologetics after Trump

Chris Sinkinson

There is no doubt that social media and online platforms have provided opportunities for public witness and evangelism like never before.

In February 2004 Mark Zuckerburg launched Facebook, originally as a way of keeping in touch with friends; it quickly became a tool for sharing news, information and ideas.

Why do Christians keep doomscrolling?

Kirsten Birkett

I like the internet. I was a very early user and encouraged others to go online.

It is good to have information available, and commentary and opinion about that information. That’s what libraries do, and a huge, free, easily accessible library is a good thing to have. The problems of quality control mean we need to be discerning about said information; but that’s the case in any library.

Always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you

Rebecca Chapman

Book Review REASONING IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE: Delivering the Changeless Message Through Ever-changing Media

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Opportunities for the gospel on social media

Graham Nicholls

The average person in the UK spends at least five hours per day on the internet in addition to work-related access and a significant part of this is on social media.

Over 86 per cent of the United Kingdom’s total internet user base (regardless of age) uses at least one social media platform, obviously some more active than others.

Smartphone threats

John Woods

Book Review THE ANXIOUS GENERATION: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

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culture watch

Influencers: yay or nay?

Milla Ling-Davies

When someone says ‘social media influencer’ do you think of a teenager dancing and taking selfies in front of the Eiffel Tower? Picturing this, it can be easy to write influencers off as immature or vain. But is this the whole story?

An influencer is a normal person, like you or me, who has ‘built a large social media following typically due to their expertise on specific topics’ (Influencer Marketing Hub). They share videos and photos about subjects like parenting, food or travel, and can have millions of people listening in. They have, surprise surprise, influence.

Christian community and today’s rising loneliness in the digital era

Patrick Parkinson

Ours is perhaps the most socially connected generation in history.

We live in an age when people can communicate almost instantaneously by email and messaging programs, talk with one another over video, and be in contact with a large number of others through social media.

Christian theology lecturer dismissed for tweet

en staff

This March, Dr Aaron Edwards (37) was fired from his position as a theology lecturer at Cliff College, Derbyshire, following his controversial tweet concerning homosexuality.

The tweet, shared from his personal account, went viral. It read:

Mission today: TikTok pastor clocks up online flock

Nicola Laver

An evangelical church minister has headed for the spiritual harvest fields of TikTok, one of the latest and most popular social media platforms, to evangelise a new, younger audience – and he’s starting to reap success.

David Sims, vicar of St Thomas’ Church in Aldridge, Walsall since 2021, has amassed more than 10,500 followers on his @ tiktok_vicar profile where he runs virtual church services, reads the Bible and raises controversial subjects.

Abortion, prayer – and my revealing Twitter chat

David Shepherd

A little while ago, the Oscar-winning actress Julia Roberts posted a captioned picture of herself on Facebook in response to the leak of the US Supreme Court’s draft opinion on Roe v Wade (the landmark 1973 decision that conferred a constitutional right to abortion).

She wrote: ‘Happy Mother’s Day. May we be mothers when we want, how we want and IF we want.’ [Mother’s Day in the US is on a different date to the UK.]

Social media ‘vitriol’ warning

Iain Taylor, Anglican Church

In his latest address to the Provincial Council, Archbishop Foley Beach of the Anglican Church in North America has warned Christians, especially clergy, that they need to behave better on social media.

Noting that the pandemic has led to people’s fears, frustrations, anger, and concerns overflowing onto the streets and the internet, Archbishop Beach is most disconcerted by the vitriol and lack of Christian character displayed among Christians on social media. He insists that, as followers of Jesus, we should be appalled by the broad labelling, assumptions, and condemning of whole groups of people, together with the mean and personal attacks on individuals.

This is what teenagers like me are facing every day online

Esme from Sussex, aged 16, describes the feeling of isolation as a Christian teenager on social media

The first social media platform started in 1997. Twenty-three years later, social media has become its own online society. At 16, I am part of the first generation to not grow up without the Internet.

In Depth: social media