Amy Welborn on online religion writing
It happens all the time. It is a constant temptation. In the late 1950’s and early 60’s, faith was diluted in the marketplace most often by sentimentality and idealistic, black-and-white caricatures of virtue. In the present moment—which, given the pace of change, might last until next week—the market demands a kind of performative authenticity played out by personalities, inviting you to faith, not so much because it is objectively real and true, but because, well, I’m a part of it and I’m pretty cool, so you’ll probably want to join up, too.
The format has changed, pamphlets replaced by Instagram posts and sentimental tales supplanted by first-person accounts of self-acceptance, but the dynamic is the same: the risk and fact of the content being shaped by the format, the message by the needs of the messenger and demands of the audience. So evangelization in the age of Instagram becomes just what Instagram and the rest of social media is: an aspirational marketplace trading in curated imperfection and performative authenticity.
