My Take: Why Christians are jerks online
It’s unfortunately not that uncommon for business travelers to get in trouble when they’re on the road. With a “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” approach they tend to do things they would never do at home. “The rules don’t apply here. I’m a different person. This is ‘road me,’ not ‘home me.’” I believe sometimes Christians approach the Internet the same way. The rules of “real life” don’t count.
And the truth is, grace is the antidote to being a jerk online.
Well, maybe not in the sense he seems to mean. The sloganized version of grace (which for many is kind of like a magic word that makes wrong things right and discernment unnecessary) is not an antidote to anything. It's not clear to me if Acuff is in that camp or not. But grace changing people by making them willing and able to obey, yes. Because 99% of the time, when people misbehave online they are just failing to love neighbor as self... they're being disobedient.
But I do think Acuff has a couple of interesting points there... the tendency to think "online doesn't count" and focusing on "small things" in others rather than facing our own flaws--human nature. But Jesus already gave us a really good metaphor for that: the speck in someone else's eye vs. the beam in our own.
