No.Nonsense.

I began this column just before Christmas of last year and since then I have posted three columns a week on multiple platforms. I have my private pages which allow me to share my writing with people I know and who know me. I have my public pages under my pseudonym.

All in all, I have posted 79 columns on seven profiles across five platforms and this week is my first experience with online trolls. Let me tell you what happened.

Last week I wrote a column about extending grace and how Christians seem to have a harder time practicing it. I was very proud of the balance I struck and the sentiment I expressed. I am working on building my readership and periodically run ads on Facebook to get more eyes on my writing. I used the grace column on the ad to boost readers.

And that column introduced me to my first ever online trolls who decided to hate on me.

One messaged me and asked me if I was “born again” and I replied that I was indeed a Christian. He messaged back that I didn’t answer his question and was I “born again” and I said I was (insert eye roll here) and then he messaged a third time and said I obviously didn’t know what being born again meant and send him my mailing address and he would send me some gospel tracts.

Delete. Block.

I had another that tried to argue that Christians killed people. When I said that was the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages and not representative of Christianity, he replied that it was in the 1970s and that all Christians were evil.

Delete. Block.

A third posted a comment that Christianity was a mental illness. I replied I was sorry she felt that way. She answered that I didn’t need to apologize because basically I was crazy too. I sent back that I was going to practice what I preached and extend grace by disengaging from a nonproductive discussion. She then said I was running away like all of the insane Christians.

Delete. Block.

I paused the ad I was running in order to stop the escalation of the comments which seemed to grow worse each day.

And then today I received a message that had an “alert” from Meta that I was posting inaccurate or misleading content. Well, okay, then. The message itself looked official. EXCEPT it came from a private profile that had not been used since 2018, was copied and pasted with a Word document attached of the “complaint”.

As one of my favorite podcasters says, do they think I fell out of a coconut tree?

Delete. Block messages. Block profile.

I did have some beautiful comments and I’m appreciative of them. But the messages I received were two to one in the negative.

I have posted some controversial opinions over these months, opinions that have led to some in-depth discussions on my personal pages. My public pages bring me views and likes on the regular but have never brought this level of discourse. I have no problem with people disagreeing with me but I will never understand why people engage in such vitriol. Is it because of the fact they are in a sense anonymous and feel they can say whatever they want? Is it because they are simply hateful human beings who will challenge anything they don’t like?

And why is it that the only column that has received this kind of treatment is the one where I talked about extending grace?

Could it maybe have been to give me the opportunity to show some grace?

One thing I do know is that I will likely get this same treatment again in the future because there are those out there who are emboldened behind their keyboards. I also know that I’ve learned a valuable lesson this week for my future engagement.

I don’t always have to respond.

If you want a reasonable discussion, feel free to hit me up. If you want a debate, I’m down for that one too. If you want to be nasty?

Delete. Block.

Don’t feed the trolls because it makes them hungrier.