An Apology. A Musing. And a Request. Or Two.

First up, the apology...

I’m sorry that I’ve been a bit AWOL lately. I’m particularly sorry for not having published the additional ‘soundbite theology’ piece I promised in my last post.

The truth is that I have some rather large writing deadlines looming – the most significant being the completion of my manuscript for a commentary on 1 & 2 Thessalonians for the Hodder Bible Commentary series. (The ‘Man of Lawlessness’ is coming for me sometime in January 😬). This means that any spare thinking or writing time I manage to scrounge up is currently being channelled directly into that. I absolutely love spending this amount of time deep in the text of the Bible. But it’s definitely demanding.

I’m also expecting the first six months of 2026 to be busy with some other significant and (God-willing) exciting demands on my time and energies. I hope to share more about that sometime in the New Year.

But all of this means I need to apologise in advance if my presence on here remains a bit patchy for a little while longer. I want you to know that I don’t take your interest in my writing for granted. I am so grateful for your patience with me as I try to work out how to ‘do’ life as a tent-making theological writer and resourcer, all while remaining sane, meeting deadlines and managing to pay some bills.

Now for the musing…

Over the last month or so, I’ve been prayerfully pondering my engagement on social media, and especially on X/Twitter.

I’ve always been someone who enjoys dialoguing with others in writing. I was an early adopter of the old school discussion forums that cropped up in the Noughties. I was also an avid user of Facebook in the days before seeing a friend’s post meant scrolling through a dozen ads for products I don’t need but too often end up buying anyway, and another dozen clickbait headlines about the latest celebrity gossip or (very frustratingly, unnamed) Netflix series.

And yet, when it came to the bird (and now the Musk) platform, I was a late bloomer. Honestly, the place intimidated and overwhelmed me. Everything moved at a million miles per second. So much of what I saw seemed both brash and rash. I couldn’t make sense of all the tweets, sub-tweets, acronyms and abbreviations.

And so no sooner would I think “Maybe I should give that Twitter thing another go”, that I’d log on and then pretty much immediately log back off again, thinking “Yeah, maybe not”. In hindsight, I think this was God’s kindness in protecting me from the distraction (amongst other things) that it would have undoubtedly been for me during my years in full-time women’s ministry and then PhD study.

But, eventually, the day came when I decided to apply myself to the task of understanding and interacting on that platform. (I can neither confirm nor deny that this had anything to do with a prospective publisher suggesting that, if I hoped to get my PhD research published, I needed to build a profile on the blue-bird.) So, I logged on, convinced myself to stay logged on, and have remained logged on ever since.

But here’s the thing. Yes, I’m someone who has always enjoyed dialoguing with others through writing. It really helps me sharpen and refine my thinking. But I’m also someone who is instinctively conflict-averse. I love debating ideas, but I find personal disagreement challenging. I benefit from critiquing others’ thoughts and having my own critiqued, but I am deeply uncomfortable when that translates into relational discord.

My secret is out: I am a wuss.

This means that Twitter/X is both my dream and my nightmare. It allows me to engage with, challenge, push back on the ideas others are playing with, and to bring my own ideas into the mix for them to do the same. That sharpens my thinking, grows my understanding and, by God’s grace, makes me wiser.

But the disembodied nature of the platform also makes it very easy to engage with those ideas as if they were divorced from the personhood of the one who espouses them. To be lured into normalising strident, even aggressive, conflict because they are just words in a sentence, pixels on a screen. For angsty, and angry, enraged and embittered to become the norm.

I remember, in those first couple of years, how deeply uncomfortable I was with some of the strident behaviour of people I considered my own theological, pastoral, and spiritual kin. I often agreed with their point but was profoundly uneasy with their posture. The brazen blanket pronouncements, the assumption of others’ motives. The lack of generosity. It made my skin itch and my face heat.

Now, years later, I haven’t only built up a bit of an immunity to it… I fear I have, at times, become a participant in it.

I spend a lot of time (probably too much time) crafting the words I post on X/Twitter—though you wouldn’t know it from the number of typos I let slip through. I work hard at trying to be as charitable as possible. I try not to overreach, overstate, or overgeneralise. And, with all thanks to God, I think I’m often successful, and more importantly, faithful, in that.

But I can see—indeed, I can feel—the way the platform has gotten its claws into my sinful nature. It has exploited my own fallen weaknesses to shape me into its own image. I know I’m not always faithful in my interactions on it.

And the truth is that there are some ways in which I am particularly vulnerable to this happening.

For instance, I’m a female theologian operating in what is essentially a man’s world (at least according to most of the men in it). To make matters more complicated, I’m a complementarian female theologian in that world. This means I’m often considered a traitor by both male complementarians and female egalitarians alike. Being stuck in no-(wo)man’s land can leave me feeling like I need to stand my ground and stake it out. At times, assertively. Many complementarian men and egalitarian women often accuse me of doing that poorly. On occasion, they are right.

Moreover, my particular area of theological research and resourcing—initially the topic of singleness in the evangelical church, and now relational anthropology more broadly—has required me to critique and challenge some of the most zealously guarded evangelical shibboleths of our time. Doing so has put me at odds with some of those in my own “tribe”… at least from their perspective. I’m a theologically conservative, complementarian, evangelical Christian (I mean, I’m a born and bred Sydney Anglican for crying out loud!) who is very often typecast by other theologically conservative, complementarian, evangelical Christians as a theologically liberal, feminist, progressive non-Christian… all because, here and there, I push back a little on the closely guarded party line.

When you are constantly operating in contested spaces and having your presence in those contested spaces constantly contested, it can be easy to become defensive, self-righteous and even embittered. I work hard not to. I don’t always succeed.

Sometimes that is displayed in the occasional frustrated or fruitless language I let slip through. Sometimes it is present in uncharitable assumptions or conclusions. Sometimes it is evidenced in how long it takes me to rework my unpublished draft into something constructive rather than merely a rant. Sometimes it is revealed in what I do post about… and what I don’t post about.

It’s not all the time.
It’s not much of the time.
But even a small amount of the time is still too much of the time.

And so, over the next few months, I’m going to be praying that God’s Spirit will help me become increasingly discerning and faithful in my interactions on social media. It doesn’t mean that I will stop engaging in good-faith dialogue and disagreement or pushing back on those party lines when I consider them to be at odds with the teaching of Scripture and love of the sheep. I’ll still occasionally rattle some cages—not for the sake of it, but for the sake of Christ.

But as I do all of that (as well as, God-willing, edify and enjoy others online), I want to honour Christ more and more. And give Satan less and less of a foothold.

Which leads me to the request…

Actually, I have two requests.

Firstly, would you please pray for me in this? And while you are at it, please pray for yourself and others in it too.

Secondly, if you do interact with, or even read, my posts on social media, could I ask you to intentionally read them in the broader context of my theological framework, my pastoral commitments, and even what you know of my personhood?

As I said above, it’s exhausting to consistently operate in contested spaces.. And it’s becoming even more exhausting now that I regularly find myself being trolled by multitudes of misogynistic trolls or opportunist bots. We all need readers who will treat our words like a conversation, not a courtroom. And I promise, I’m not auditioning for the role of ‘Most Controversial Female Theologian on X’.

So here’s the deal: I’ll keep trying to interact like a Christian, and you keep trying to read me like one. And vice versa. Between the two of us, we might just redeem a small corner of the internet. At the very least, we can avoid adding to the dumpster fire.

And in the meantime… Merry Christmas, my friends! God is with us!