The Church of England has issued a spiritual warning to clergy, saying excessive use of social media puts people “at risk of becoming stupid”.
A major study into trust and credibility in the Church of England has identified social media as one of a number of factors that could be “highly disruptive”.
The investigation found that people were “not being rigorous enough” in checking the accuracy of information they posted online.
As a result, people don’t know who they can trust.
The Church of England has issued a spiritual warning to clergy, arguing that excessive use of social media puts people “at risk of becoming stupid”.GettyThe report said social media users are becoming “increasingly abusive” when judging celebrities.
“Easy access to large amounts of information gives us the illusion of being more informed,” the report said.
“But the indiscriminate use of social media runs the risk of making us poor judges of where to place our trust.”
The report also suggested: “It would be an interesting exercise in spiritual direction if we asked all of us on social media, all of us keyboard warriors, to gather every tweet and every word you’ve ever said in your life onto a piece of paper or document and then sit down with Christ and read it.”
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The report, titled “Trust and Credibility in the Church of England”, was commissioned to examine “how to restore and maintain trust in the institutions and structures of the Church”.
It was commissioned in 2022 by the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, Reverend Martin Seely, in response to issues that emerged in 2021 while working on another project.
In criticising abusive behaviour on social media, the report stressed that its recommendations go beyond simply suggesting “please be kinder to each other online”.
Criticism of opinions that are considered to be incorrect should be directed at the opinion itself, never at the person who expressed it.
A major study into trust and credibility in the Church of England has identified social media as one of a number of factors that could be “highly disruptive”.
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The report, due to be presented to the church’s governing body, the General Synod, next month, said priests have been overly critical of church leaders and have even shown excessive “independence” and “separatism” from church leadership.
Some priests have been critical of the report.
The Reverend Marcus Walker, rector of St Bartholomew the Great in London, said: “This report into ‘trust and credibility within the Church of England’ is absolutely damning. There is a lot of blame placed on those outside the leadership, particularly social media.”
