“Something is wrong on the internet”
...Someone or something or some combination of people and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatise, and abuse children, automatically and at scale, and it forces me to question my own beliefs about the internet, at every level. Much of what I am going to describe next has been covered elsewhere, although none of the mainstream coverage I’ve seen has really grasped the implications of what seems to be occurring.
To begin: Kid’s YouTube is definitely and markedly weird. I’ve been aware of its weirdness for some time. Last year, there were a number of articles posted about the Surprise Egg craze. Surprise Eggs videos depict, often at excruciating length, the process of unwrapping Kinder and other egg toys. That’s it, but kids are captivated by them. There are thousands and thousands of these videos and thousands and thousands, if not millions, of children watching them...
Albert Mohler: Tragedy in Texas: Christian Testimony in the Face of Evil ...This particular attack in Texas highlights the fact that Christians are not immune from this kind of heartbreak. We cannot understand exactly what that congregation in that community is experiencing, but we do understand heartbreak, and we know that heartbreak is at the very center of their experience at this moment.
The Christian worldview affirms the dignity of human life. According to Scripture, every single human life is of eternal value and inestimable worth. Murder is not, then, merely a crime, it is an assault on the dignity of the human being—an attack upon the image of God.
In one very important dimension, this demonstrates why the Christian worldview is so utterly different than every other worldview. Atheism, for instance, must affirm that, at its base, human life is merely a series of accidents. There is no Creator, so there is no human being made in the Creator’s image. Of course atheists would clearly classify this murderous attack in Sutherland Springs, Texas, as evil, but they have no real ability to understand or to embrace the notion of evil with any coherence. Evil is essentially a theological category. Without theism evil becomes simply the strongest word we have to describe something we wish hadn’t happened...
Christian Leaders Respond to the Deadliest Church Shooting in American History
How Your Church Should Prepare for an Active Shooter
Thom Rainer: I hate the title of this article.
I hate that I even feel compelled to write about the topic. But many of you contacted me after the tragic murders at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas. Here are some basic issues...
