I am not a big fan of Internet memes. Recently though, I was surprised to find I could learn something important from them.

It surprised me because — okay, I’ll admit it — I’m really not a fan of memes. I’d go so far as to say that if you’ve never run across a meme and don’t know what one is, you can count yourself lucky. Read on anyway, please, since as I said, there’s something here to learn.

What is a meme? The name itself biases me against them. Originally it was a term coined by Richard Dawkins for his supposedly scientific explanation of the way “irrational” ideas like “God” have propagated as successfully as they have. Memes in that sense have been thoroughly discredited by sociology, psychology, communication theory, and philosophy (just for starters). Dawkins’s version of memes has not fared well.

But the name lives on. The newer Internet version of a meme is a photo or graphic with some brief verbiage on it. The idea is to say it and get it over with, frequently with sarcasm, often with a heavy dose of self-satisfied smugness.

So what could anyone possibly learn from memes? Let me take you on a journey, a tour of the same quick meme research that I did, through a Google image search on “Christianity homosexuality meme.” (If you’ve never encountered memes before, this is your opportunity.) This link should get you there, though these things are unpredictable with Google. If it doesn’t work, just go to Google and do an image search for those three terms.

Steel yourself first, however. What you encounter on this trip will not be pleasant.

Skim down the page of image results. First you’ll notice that the great majority of memes there are anti-Christian. There’s anger there, and considerable contempt toward Christianity. (I warned you this wouldn’t be pleasant.)

That’s the first impression you’ll likely gain when you go there. Keep looking, though, and you’ll learn some more. The anti-Christian memes fall almost entirely into two main categories. The first group charges Christians with being inconsistent in our beliefs. Here’s an example, charging that we use Leviticus selectively to condemn homosexuality while ignoring its other teachings. The other group is about being inconsistent in our practice: Christian hypocrisy, whether real or alleged. You can find plenty of examples of that group on your own.

You could do a similar Google image search on just “Christianity meme” without “homosexuality” and find broadly similar results. I included the third term because of work I’ve been doing on gay and lesbian activism in relation to Christianity. Either way, here’s the sum of it: There are at least some people in the world who view Christians as completely confused and/or not very good people.

That’s a little information, but on its own it’s not much. You might wonder, “How big is this group? Who are they? What difference does it make?” Google image searches deliver little information to answer those kinds of questions. Interestingly, though, what we learn from this quick overview of memes dovetails nicely with George Yancey’s research on Christianophobia, which I’ve mentioned here previously. The attitudes expressed in these memes are very similar to those he uncovered among those with Christianophobia.

Yancey found that people found that people with Christianophobia are predominantly white, educated, and wealthy: relatively influential, in other words. Now, I rather doubt that memes we’ve been looking at come from society’s elite. I suspect instead that our Google image search gives us a stark, graphic picture of how effective their influence has been in the mainstream.

But that’s not all we can learn from memes. The first group of memes — the ones that charge us with misinterpreting our own Scripture — seem to be the product of people who think they understand the Bible better than we do. See the examples here, for instance. That’s rather an odd conclusion, rife with hubris and — yes, unfortunately, it needs to be said — ignorance, in astonishing degree.

Take the Leviticus example I gave above, for example. How damaging is it? Not at all. It’s easily answered from Mark 7:19, Acts 10, almost all of Galatians, some of Colossians, and a few shorter passages in Romans and 1 Corinthians. Not only that, but we’ve had thousands of years to reflect upon the Bible’s dietary instructions. Yet then along comes this sarcastic wit who thinks he can take it all down with a photo and a quick jab. It’s as if he’s saying, “Hey, I’ll bet you never thought about this before,” which is tantamount to making the taunt, “Hey, I’ll bet you’ve pretty much never thought at all. Look how easy this was, after all!”

A thoughtful person would wonder that Christianity could have advanced as it has — from such a small beginning to such worldwide influence as it has today, both socially and intellectually, across every major culture, in spite of great opposition along the way — if it could have been taken down that easily. And yet the memes are out there, meaning there are plenty of people who haven’t asked themselves that question. I suspect the reason they have such confidence is that they’re reflecting opinions that have filtered down to them from the elite, many of whom (based on Yancey’s findings) have also failed to ask that kind of question.

We could jab back at this ignorance. I’ll admit to being tempted. But that’s not our job. Our job is to “gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25 NLT).

For the ignorance doesn’t just reflect their lack of knowledge. It reflects our failure to capture their interest and to teach them the truth. Why is that? I suppose one could say we don’t live our faith consistently enough (think of that second group of memes we identified above), we don’t express our faith imaginatively enough, we don’t love others self-sacrificially enough, and we don’t teach the truth thoughtfully enough.

One could say that, but it would be rather glib: “Here are four ways Christians have failed!” I might as well make a meme out of them, if that’s all I have to say. These things take more thought than that.

Regarding homosexuality in particular, I’ve done some of that kind of thinking and I’ve written it in my new book “Critical Conversations: A Christian Parents’ Guide to Discussing Homosexuality with Teens.” It’s one of many books that have been written to show that Christians have come thoughtfully to our conclusions regarding marriage and morality. We really have given this some thoughtful attention. We’ve tried to focus our thinking in respectful, relational directions.

If there’s one thing I like least about most memes, you see, it’s their sarcastic drive-by “gotcha” tone. It detracts from rather than contributing to human connection and conversation.

We can learn from memes. Maybe we can teach their makers something in return: to treat one another with respect as fellow human beings. Starting there, we might also be able to help them discover the true goodness of God in Jesus Christ.

For Further Reading:

Sean McDowell and John Stonestreet, “Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God’s Design for Marriage” (Baker, 2014).

Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George, “What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense” (Encounter Books, 2012).