I have never used any form of social media. It intimidates me. Nevertheless, I started an Instagram account in the hope that I might be able to use it to start conversations with pro-choice people. I followed a couple of pro-life pages and began reading through the comments on their posts. I was intimidated by the many nasty comments from both pro-life and pro-choice people. I was determined to at least try to have a conversation, though, so I sent a direct message to every pro-choice person I saw regardless of whether their comments were nasty or not.
To my surprise, even the individuals who had left particularly offensive comments were generally open to dialogue when I engaged them in a respectful and friendly way. Within mere hours of starting an Instagram account, I was talking with a pro-choice girl. She shared with me her story and some of the difficult experiences that have shaped her views on this issue and other issues. We talked about the problem of pain, worldviews, and the gospel. Through this and other conversations, I was amazed and excited to discover that it is possible to have meaningful dialogue over Instagram.
I never would have thought that social media could become a platform for dialogue, much less that it might open doors for impact that in-person events never could.
I was having a conversation with another young woman on Instagram. She was very pro-choice. We talked about abortion for awhile and eventually began talking about faith. She shared her belief that the world is a simulation: We are characters in some more powerful being’s video game. We don’t have free will. Our every movement is determined by that other being.
I believe that different religious perspectives are worth discussing for their own sake, but I also believe that our religious perspective often becomes the foundation upon which all of our other beliefs are built. If someone believes that no one has free will, that we are just characters in a video game, it is likely that their pro-choice perspective flows from that belief and thus we must challenge that underlying belief system.
We talked for a while on Instagram direct message about her beliefs. After a while, she asked me what I believed, and I shared with her about my faith in Christ. But there are ways in which discussing these kinds of topics over direct message can be difficult, tedious, and frustrating. One has to type everything out, wait sometimes hours for a response only to be confused by the response, ask a question to clarify, then wait again.
Instagram has a video call option, so I asked her if she would be interested in doing a video call so that we could dive deeper into our discussion of our different worldviews. She said yes, and we picked a time that worked for both of us.
When I called, she answered and said that she had forgotten we were going to talk and that she and her friends were doing their nails. I said that we could definitely wait until a better time, but she insisted that we talk then. I expected a one-on-one conversation but what I got was a group conversation as her friends chimed in with their perspectives.
