This blog post is adapted from a Twitter1 thread that I tweeted out on the same topic.
Yesterday, I learned that my mother is in the hospital for COVID. I tweeted the following out to my followers, looking for support:
I would like to note that I specifically directed this message to “friends who…” I would have thought that this would have made it clear that I wasn’t looking for every person who believed in prayer to jump on it.
And yet, three different people who do not follow me and have no followers in common with me decided to retweet my request to their followers. I’m not even sure how any of them found my tweet, to be honest. As I said, I don’t follow me, and I doubt my tweets get promoted, sine I refuse to send Musk any money.
I get it. it’s entirely possible that these people meant well. After all, I think there’s an impulse to get as many people praying as possible. And I think that usually comes from a good place. But as the song goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. More on that later.
But I think we as a society also need to balance that impulse against respecting people’s privacy and whether or not they want every prayer they can possibly get. There are probably some people I don’t want praying for my or my mother. Namely people who are going to pray for an outcome I don’t approve of. (My mother’s health crisis is neither your evangelistic opportunity nor a chance to pray for my “salvation.”)
I will note that all three people who retweeted my request are Christians. Not the same kind of Christian, mind you. One seemed like a pretty progressive type. Another was an obvious Christian supremacist. I’d be hard pressed to describe the third one with such certainty, but their bio and tweet history suggested that they were at least inclined toward some degree of Christian supremacy.
Now, I will note that a lot of people I don’t know — including Christians who probably found my prayer request through the overt Christian supremacist — left kind offers of prayer. I appreciated that. But then you have good ol’ Tom, who totally found me through that overt Christian supremacist. Here’s what Tom had to say:2
I would be happy to pray for you, Jarred, AFTER you remove “send positive energy” from your request. If I pray Only God will get the glory.
Because leave it to a Christian supremacist to turn a chance to pray for a sick woman into a religious pissing match.
Now I’d like to think that most people — including multitudes of people who fall somewhere in Christian supremacy — would be horrified by Tom’s behavior. And many of my friends took Tom to task for his behavior. (Much love to you.)
But the Christian supremacist who enabled Tom to find me through his retweet? As of late last night when I checked, he hasn’t said a peep. He hasn’t taken Tom to task. Nor has he expressed any regret for — whether intentionally or not — put me in Tom’s rhetorical crosshairs. For me that’s a problem.
So consider this post a reminder that maybe not every tweet should be retweeted and that maybe we should take more care in considering what the consequences of retweeting something deeply personal and sensitive to other people might be. Even if our hearts are in the right place and just want to make sure that a sick woman and her son get as much prayer as possible. Because remember, I was somewhat specific in who I was directing my prayer request to.
1I will never call it “X.” However, if someone pays me $20 per month, I’ll gladly start referring to it as “Close App Icon.”
2I will not link directly to Tom’s profile or tweet because Tom does not deserve the traffic. Also, I’d just as soon he not find this post through Google search if he’s the type to search his name. (In fairness, I search my name about every six months and don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the practice.