In the last few years before he died, one of the ideas that Scott Adams sought to popularize was the existence and value of certain "Internet Dads".
These were (mostly) men who use their online presence to disseminate fatherly wisdom rather than outrage. They are influencers, true, but only in the most positive directions. They aren't looking to get rich; they want to spread sanity and propagate critical thinking.
Adams numbered himself among the Internet Dads. He certainly functioned as such for me.
Not in a spiritual sense, though, since Adams was an atheist. (Although I would say he was as close to the Kingdom of God as an atheist can get.) Critical thinking and human psychology were his specialties, and he altered my perceptions of reality on a regular basis.
I've always been a bit jealous of the relationship between the Apostle Paul and Timothy, Paul's "son in the faith".
If I ever had a father in the faith, it was for a single brief year during college when an Intervarsity Christian Fellowship staff member, Tom Shepherd, took an interest in my budding spiritual life.
And even now, at 58 years down the path, if I should come across a real-life mentor tomorrow, I would latch on and not let go.
To be clear, I don't feel as though I were singled out for spiritual neglect - mentorship in the faith is a rare thing in the modern church.
All of this is to say that the Lord seems to be fostering a genuine passion in me to be a mentor to others at this stage of my life.
Recently I've taken great joy in some real-life mentoring situations, and it seems to me that in a world largely devoid of spiritual fathers and sons, mentoring can in fact be scalable - through the internet.
The existing Internet Dads I know of all tend to focus on finances, entrepreneurship, politics and similar secular concerns.
Perhaps there is space for a spiritual Internet Dad.
