Would Jesus Be On Tiktok?

Not long ago, I spoke at Liberty University to a large group of undergraduates. The topic was cultural apologetics, and I explained our strategy at The Gospel Coalition. I said we’re happy to meet you online. Then we tell you to go touch grass. It was my only applause line in about an hour on stage. And it told me something about Gen Z: They may be the group that breaks the strangleholds of smartphones and social media.

No doubt we hope to aid in that effort through a new book, Scrolling Ourselves to Death: Reclaiming Life in a Digital Age, published by TGC with Crossway. The editors are my good friends and long-time colleagues Brett McCracken and Ivan Mesa. We’re building on the previous work of Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, which was published 40 years ago and focuses on television. Our situation has changed, though the underlying problems remain or have even grown worse. Brett writes, “From the rising of the sun to its going down, we scroll our way through the day. We scroll our way through life. And we are scrolling ourselves to death.”

We covered a lot of ground in this interview—Ivan and Brett have both worked in social media for TGC, and we often discussed and debated our approach to emerging platforms such as TikTok. In many ways, this book continues those conversations in light of our overall commitment to Jesus and his example. I love the book, and I’m honored that they invited me to contribute the chapter on preaching. If you want to be a tangible participant in life instead of just observing other people’s lives, join us for this interview—then go touch grass.