Why I Got Back on Facebook After Deleting My Account in 2020

Frustrated with censorship, I deleted my Facebook account November 25, 2020. Yesterday, I returned.  The whole business bothers me. In an effort to sort through why, this episode is dedicated to unpacking the whole messy situation. Facebook is so Meta now. And where the Metaverse is concerned, we need informed opinions rather than emotional outbursts and tired platitudes. The practical reality for the foreseeable is that Big Tech owns the lion's share of the internet. There is no living in the modern world without maintaining some kind of presence in this space. But I want to do more than rail against infringements on free speech. No one will be charmed or won over by begrudging and bitter engagement on this subject, and that includes me.  The simple fact when it all boils down is that my reasons for both leaving and returning to Facebook are the same. Our first responsibility is to love the Lord our God with all our being, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. When I left, my hope was to do both better by leaving than I could by staying. So also, my return is predicated on the belief that to continue on being a conscientious objector and abstainer under the circumstances would be less than the best I can offer, and that I can love God and my neighbor better if I rejoin. The trouble with boycotts is as it always has been. Where do we draw the line, and how far are we willing to go in forsaking all interaction with an organization based on their objectionable practices? And what if all the alternatives, or near enough, become similarly objectionable? Whatever valid objections a person might have to the corporate policies and practices of Walmart or Amazon, it is very hard to buy groceries or nearly anything at a reasonable price apart from them right now. And starving, though an option, is also objectionable. So also with the technology by which we stay in touch and communicate with one another. Will I forgo a cell phone and internet if all the available service providers have dirty hands and hearts? And what if the power and water companies go woke?  At a more basic level where the Christian conscience is concerned, I don't believe we are commanded to by God. If anything, the requirement that a man provide for the needs of his household may require that we have to buy our necessities from people we profoundly disagree with, and who even loathe and resent our believing as we do. Just as I readily refuse to become enslaved by newfangled social media technologies, neither can I afford to become a slave to protesting them. And this holds true particularly if engagement with them is a precondition for reforming society and seeking the welfare of the city, which seems to be the case. Often over the past year and a month of being off Facebook I have meditated on why God would tell exiled Jews in Babylon through the prophet Jeremiah to "seek the welfare of the city" to which they had been brought. And what I conclude is that however pagan Babylon truly was, it pleased God to be represented in those circumstances by His people continuing to live in a way that brought glory to Him. In other words, God commanded His people to continue loving Him and their neighbors - and even their enemies - despite the idolatry and wickedness of Babylon. So I hope I am not a dog returning to my vomit, and a fool returning to his folly. Yet even more hopefully I am not wise in my own eyes, nor self-righteous, nor tired and embittered. As James tells us to have the proper attitude where plans are concerned, we do well to remember the principle in this context. "God willing, we will live and do this or that."  Therefore, when God leads us underground, we go underground. And when he leads us back into the open, we follow Him there also.