Our church invited Aimee Byrd to speak on Sunday morning several weeks ago. It wasn’t the first time. It won’t be the last time. While we only ordain men, we also allow non-ordained individuals to teach our congregation periodically—including women. I know many Christians would disagree with our position (what is sometimes called “soft complementarianism,” though I don’t own that label) in good faith.
But this isn’t an article about complementarianism or egalitarianism. It’s a post about online anonymity, trolls, and godly speech.
Why? During the weeks before and after Aimee visited, a small army of vitriolic social media users, hiding behind fake names, bios, and (sometimes racist) images mobilized to attack our church and speaker with language that I can only describe as horrifying, ugly, and dehumanizing.
The worst part was that they spoke as Christians courageously defending the truth. I can’t repeat the worst things these anonymous users said because they are…
