In Praise of Snark

Last updated on: November 12, 2015 at 9:00 am by Anne Kennedy

In Praise of Snark 2015-11-12T09:00:14-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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I received this little gem of a comment in my combox yesterday:

“Wow, the spirit of this blog — this post and most of the others — is dark and grace-free, and seems to be infected with a kind of Matt Walsh snarky negativity. Your analysis of why people are reacting negatively to the Starbucks red cup hater guy is way off, and I suppose flows from an incredibly dismissive view of humanity (or, that portion of humanity that is unsaved and/or which is different from you).”

I didn’t post it because I have determined a clear guideline for myself in the posting of comments and it violated that standard. What is that guide? you ask. No personal attacks, no tone policing, and a comment won’t go up if the commenter has beclowned himself or herself. If I think a comment is so illogical and weird that the commenter would be embarrassed (not feel embarrassed, tragically, the presence of comments like these indicate that the commenter is not feeling any shame, poor thing) but would be embarrassed in the eyes of rational people. It’s a matter of Christian charity, for me, of covering over offense and weakness rather than making sport of it.

The comment above falls into Tone Policing and therefore I didn’t publish it. Except that I am here because of the incredible treasure of being likened to Matt Walsh’s snarky negativity. I am thoroughly delighted. I love Matt Walsh! He’s so funny and mean. I spend most of my time wandering the maze of the Internet looking for exactly that kind of snark, and sarcasm, of searching out for myself the cutting and funny rebuke, as indeed I do in actual books. Snark and sarcasm is my bread and butter–delicious impolitic butter made from the gathered tears of the ridiculous, and bread fired in the oven of other people’s foolishness.

I wanted, in this praise of snarky negativity, to say two things.

One. Jesus wasn’t that nice. He didn’t come that you may have nice and have it in abundance. He came and said to a lot of people walking around on their feet and breathing in and out with their lungs that they were dead men, rotting, white washed tombs, serpents, sinners, perishing. A small handful of people agreed with him about this assessment of themselves and followed hard after him. Thousands of others took offense. In this age of offense, where everyone gets to be offended, Jesus is not someone you will enjoy getting to know.

The gospel, most simply, is that God gave us life, but we told him to take a hike. We, therefore, perish, which means we die forever in our sins. But he, not being satisfied with our choice, himself came and took the burden of our sins onto himself. He died in our place, and we might, if we like, return to him and be restored. The very bad news, that we are all rotten people and humanity is rotten at its core, cannot be jumped over in the haste of getting to the sweetness and light on the other side. You have to stop and gaze up at a naked, bleeding, broken, reviled, shamed Christ and understand that you put him there, you should have been there, you did it, before you can go into eternal light and joy.

So yes, this blog, and some other Christian ones, is a touch dark in its tone. Rather than being dismissive of humanity, as this commenter has accused, I would like humanity not to perish forever. That’s a gentler way of saying ‘go to hell’. The whole culture, individually and corporately, is rushing down the broad road of sin and anger and offense and gender identity insanity, blind and deaf and shrieking, to spend an eternity away from God, a God who makes a clear open road for the sinner not to perish, but to cling onto Christ for the salvation of his body and soul, and I would like for as many as possible to chose him. That means not lying about things being good, when they are not good.

Two. I take exception to the picture of the Christian sketched out by this modern world. As far as I can discover, the Christian is supposed to sit in the back of the room, quietly apologizing for being so bigoted. She, or he, must be nice, all. the. time. And Nice gets to be defined by whatever the offended cry over that day. I don’t think this kind of Christianity is very interesting. It’s certainly not the kind described in the bible. It doesn’t have any muscle, any edge that will take it the distance. I’m not interested in an emotional affirmation of who I am and what the world is. That abounds in abundance all over the Internet and Christian bookstores everywhere. If you want a blog that will cry with you and hold your hand, or make you feel happy about who you are, there are lots and lots of blogs out there that can probably do that for you. Personally, I rarely click on those blogs, and I understand, therefore, that many people will loathe this one. Plus the spelling on this one is atrocious (thank you autocorrect!) so there’s that.

On the other hand, as we’re mincing our steps down to Sheol, maybe it could be useful to laugh at the ridiculous, to tarry over and acknowledge the brokenness of ourselves, to not lie about the darkness that presses in, to rejoice over the incredible love of God who didn’t take our rejection of him as the final word. As words are slung about, here, I am always casting my backward glance at The Word, whose snark, and grace, was the salvation of the world.

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