‘Just google it’: remarks at the launch of LFL website

by Dale Gosden

‘Just google it.’

If you don’t know the answer to something, or you want to be better informed, then the tool of our time is Google. It’s such a phenomenon that it’s even become a verb. However, despite Google’s all-pervasiveness, it still pays to check your sources, as my wife found out when she read one of her high-school student’s bibliographies, only to find that the one reference listed still came with a spelling mistake: ‘I goggled it’.
We all rely on Google and the internet in general to find our information today. In our time we are not short on information, or knowledge, but we might be short on wisdom.

How do you trawl through all of the information and facts available on the internet, knowing how to separate the real news from the fake news, the peer-reviewed papers from the opinion pieces? How can you tell if something is real, or if it is a scam? What is a genuine piece of helpful information and what is a sponsored site? It’s difficult to tell! And we as adults find it difficult, we who have often been well-educated and who have the experience to know when someone might be writing with sincerity and when someone might have an axe to grind. How much harder it is for students!

We all rely on Google and the internet in general to find our information today. In our time we are not short on information, or knowledge, but we might be short on wisdom.

Time and again, students drift into this Google-dominated world and are unaware of how open they are to being influenced by the pages they are reading, or the images they are viewing. Being influenced by the media is nothing new, but we do live in a time when the output of the media is not only unrestrained but it is also globally accessible. There are some things that we see on the internet that we didn’t wish to see – it just happened to pop up. Still, once something has been seen, it cannot be unseen, and this is the world in which we are living and in which our children are growing up.

There is no point becoming alarmist about this and I don’t wish to start a new conversation about the pros and cons of the internet. It merely gives us a starting point for how we are to engage with life issues today. Life issues today must be addressed using the media of today.

My first contact with a Lutherans For Life publication was in Life News, a simple newsletter that, without meaning to be rude, looked like it came from an organisation on a budget. Since it was the publication of a group associated with the LCA, I knew it had to be on a budget! However, despite its humble appearances, the content was great. In fact, it was so great that I immediately started making copies of some of the articles to use in my Christian Studies class. The pieces were written about real life issues such as abortion or homosexuality, yet they were addressed with a wonderful mix of faithfulness to God and his word and a sense of compassion for the people whom God loves. I was convinced that my students would not have been exposed to this sort of even-handed approach before. How could they be? Life News was not on the internet yet!!

From that point on I enjoyed receiving each edition of Life News and continued to make copies of articles that I thought students would appreciate. As I continued with this process, I felt I should contact the editor to make the suggestion that the articles be compiled according to topic, so that past articles and future ones could be easily accessed and made available to teachers like me, as well as students. It was at this time that I was grateful to hear that the long process of putting the new website together had begun. Soon Life News would enter the electronic world.

My enthusiasm for seeing Lutherans For Life take their work onto a website comes from knowing how well the writers of their articles are able to wade through these difficult issues and include personal stories as well to show that this isn’t merely theoretical.

In addition to the issues addressed in the Life News publications, what I also appreciated was the Lutheran perspective that came through in each article. In my brief time in schools, I have at times been stunned by the difficulties students have in providing a gracious response to ethical issues. As they have conducted their Google research and discovered that the Bible has some things to say about, say, sex outside of marriage, there have occasionally been some very harsh things to say about how to respond to a person who lives this way. What has been clear is that the students have tracked down the law very well in their internet searches but aren’t really sure how to apply the gospel. Equally, sometimes students are quick to explain that God forgives sinners, but are then at a loss to explain what an ethical approach might be to people who are say, exploiting workers, or abusing their power etc.

My enthusiasm for seeing Lutherans For Life take their work onto a website comes from knowing how well the writers of their articles are able to wade through these difficult issues and include personal stories as well to show that this isn’t merely theoretical. Life issues will always have a real-life application as well. Among the many articles I have appreciated was one from four or five years ago that followed the story of a teenage girl who became a mother and who investigated having an abortion, only to change her mind (‘Sarah’s Story‘). There was much more to the story, of course. But her account highlighted how God’s calling to live, and to let life flourish, is a calling that is soaked in blessing.

It reminded me again of how precious every life is to God, and that we come closer to him when we appreciate the breath of every creature and do our best to preserve the lives of those around us.

Recently I was fortunate enough to be walking through the city parklands just before sunset, where I found myself surrounded by bird life, even as cars zoomed past only fifty or so metres away. It was like a small sanctuary carved out in the middle of a noisy, urban setting. The tall trees, the green surroundings and the chattering of the birds as they flew past suddenly made me aware of the great gift that life truly is to us. God’s incredible blessing from the beginning was to bring life into the world and he imparted to us the power to bring life of our own into the world too. How fantastic it is to do that and to marvel at the life we see in front of us in our own children! It reminded me again of how precious every life is to God, and that we come closer to him when we appreciate the breath of every creature and do our best to preserve the lives of those around us. What a great witness it is for Christians just to be excited about life, rather than depressed or anxious about it, and to live hope-filled lives, even when the brokenness of this world threatens to rob us of our joy.

I wonder if I would have had the same experience I had in the parklands if I had been at home watching a screen? I doubt it. I don’t think you can google a spiritual experience yet. All the more reason to encourage our children – and their parents – to go outside and see the beauty of life and grow closer to the God who brings it into being. That might be a battle I will never win. However, for those students who are lucky (or unlucky) enough to find themselves in my class as they are staring at a screen, I am glad that I now will be able to direct them to a website that will be promoting life, speaking of God’s blessing within life, and pointing people to the fullness of life that is waiting for them in the person of Jesus.

I commend everyone from Lutherans for Life for their work and wish you God’s blessing at the launch of your new website.