tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post119055514070989928..comments2024-01-12T12:39:47.241-08:00Comments on The Christian Monist: The Age of Facebook and the ChurchUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post-24860496489977702672011-01-20T10:23:59.325-08:002011-01-20T10:23:59.325-08:00Facebook makes it much more difficult to live diff...Facebook makes it much more difficult to live different lives in different groups. Unless you take the time to categorize all of your "friends" and selectively post to each group, you are saying the same thing to all of your friends and family. <br /><br />Many of my generation (20-somethings) block their family members to hide the life they live around friends (hide the fact that they drink or are atheists, etc).NOTALhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18023642993271445419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post-5363937237942097212011-01-10T10:11:17.125-08:002011-01-10T10:11:17.125-08:00One thing I find interesting about Facebook is how...One thing I find interesting about Facebook is how people respond to you. Recently I learned that the Pastor of where I went to church unfriended me. What I would do is post questions on my wall. For example:<br /><br />1. Do Christians worship the Bible and do they make it an idol? <br /><br />2. Why don't Christians have difficulty with God's morals or ethics? I mean take the Egyptain plagues..I can see why you would take Pharoah's life, but what did an infant new born/first born do where he was killed by God? What was his crime? Are atrocities like this in the Old Testement commited by God any different than the attrocities carried out by Pol Pot, Stalin or Mao Zaedung? <br /><br />Anyhow...I'd post question after question on my wall. Questions dealing with the Bible, evil, church culture, etc.. <br /><br />So waht happens? My Pastor where I was embedded for several years unfriends me. I find it both amusing and distrubing. You'd think if he knew you were invovled in small groups, involved in his chruch, etc.. that he would have reached out and said something to the effect of "Hey I saw you used to be involved at &^%) Community Church, but now are no longer. What happened? If you want to talk my door is always open and I want you to know that you are loved." <br /><br />What happened instead? He pulled back Now is that what Jesus would do? <br /><br />One thing about Facebook and technology is that I think it can expose a person much easier than in the past. Many Christians carry over the facade and I think it doesn't stick as well. The phonieness looks a lot more cheesy on the net. <br /><br />Maybe its just me...Eaglenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post-7652753159054658172011-01-10T08:07:27.486-08:002011-01-10T08:07:27.486-08:00Just another thought. You mentioned the pastor'...Just another thought. You mentioned the pastor's wife moving overseas and Facebook was a way to stay in touch.<br /><br />In my days, as a missionary, the same tool was the missionary "Newsletter." We still get a ton of them from the missionaries we support. But they were a fraud. We were taught to create in the letter people who were far better than we were in reality. The true purpose of the newsletter was to get money . . .and a little prayer on the side. But we couldn't get the prayer we really needed because we couldn't talk about the hell that was happening in our personal lives.<br /><br />I have missionary friends right now who are living through hell on earth . . . but I seriously doubt they can ever talk about it outside of really personal friends.<br /><br />Like we were told by our missionary boss, "Don't share negative stuff in your newsletters. Donors never like to give to losers." That statement could have easily have come out of the mouth of Olive's dad (Little Miss Sunshine).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03457723022566193014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post-48752454695618911132011-01-10T08:00:44.849-08:002011-01-10T08:00:44.849-08:00Becky, everything you said rings true. Somehow, an...Becky, everything you said rings true. Somehow, and I will to think about it, there is a deeper candidness but at the same time a superficial nature to it. I'm not a big user of Facebook, but while many people are sharing the intimate details of their daily life, the interaction is reduced to sound bites. Maybe this candidness is a cheap substitute for true community. The Church seems to us programs as a cheap substitute for community.<br /><br />I've said before, and speaking of motives, that I believe the most fundamental motive for human behavior is the desire to be significant. Of course, the true gospel has solved that problem, but none of us grasp it psychologically here in this life. So, Facebook posting is saying, "Look what I'm doing . . . please respond and tell me that it matters to someone." Blogging like I'm doing is no different. It is a little more like, "This is what I'm thinking . . . does anyone really give a damn?" And, like the thoughts about motives, it doesn't mean that we cease what we are doing (Face-booking or blogging) but to recognize that we can never be fulfilled by those feeble attempts for finding significance.<br /><br />I think you agree however that the Facebook (Twitter, blogging) generation is different. We, the Church, need to figure out how to meet this need of community in a much more profound way.<br /><br />I do see how the Church could reach this generation better when they replace some of their models (formal program-centric) into groups of 20 something year olds sitting around coffee shops, or the living rooms of old, musty houses, listening to music, taking of real life, sharing meals and supporting each other . . . which could accented by, but not replaced socialization tools such as Facebook, Twitter etc. Of course they would need direction and not expect this to just take its course.<br /><br />Just a thought.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03457723022566193014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post-92170436946966048412011-01-10T07:46:24.752-08:002011-01-10T07:46:24.752-08:00Brenda, I think you are right. No one does anythin...Brenda, I think you are right. No one does anything out of pure motives. If we waited until we have pure motives, we would never do anything.<br /><br />I've done relief work overseas and after a week or two of that, it seems that everyone's motives are about 90% self-absorbed. Yet, like you said, if good is being done, then it is worth it.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03457723022566193014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post-31916409953860142152011-01-10T06:49:31.546-08:002011-01-10T06:49:31.546-08:00I recently read the book You are Not A Gadget: A M...I recently read the book You are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier. He's one of the Silicon Valley techie "vision types" - maybe brilliant, maybe crazy, probably both.<br /><br />He makes pretty much the opposite argument about the influence of social networking software as the NPR commentator you mention. As I read him, Mr. Lanier is concerned that the Web2.0 (or is it Web3.0?) technologies - think Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia - are forcing us into very confined, stereotyped ways of interacting (think the character limits in Facebook or Twitter) that places more value on the "fragments" a person produces than on the whole person. This tends to lead to a culture of shallow fandom rather than deep thought, everybody having to constantly produce "fragments" that advertise themselves rather than deep relationships, and an over-emphasis on the crowd relative to individual unique people.<br /><br />That's probably way too abstract, given that he spent large swaths of his book on it. And I'm middle-aged, so maybe I just don't get it, but Lanier's viewpoint jives with my experience of Facebook. Facebook got going among the women at my church as a way, initially, to keep up with a pastor's wife who moved overseas. First I had to get used to a different definition of "friend" - initially my instinct when someone sent a "friend request" was that they actually wanted to get to know me better. Nah - most of them were just collecting people (I think). It seems I am mostly valued in this new society as a source of interesting (or not) "fragments" that are only remembered until they scrolled off someone's screen, regardless of their content. (Is that the fault of the technology or the people? I think partly the technology - face-to-face conversations stick in my mind longer than character-limited comments that scroll off my screen, replaced by other character-limited comments.) Then there is the predominance of "shallow fandom" stuff - people forwarding links to articles/videos, but not engaging with the ideas; people playing Farmville, but not remotely interested in my real-life garden; comments like the reply "Yay, Jesus!" when somebody posted the Christmas status "Thank you, God, for the greatest gift: Jesus." And when someone did post something difficult, it seems like the usual "I'll pray for you" is even more shallow than usual - the person saying it doesn't have (is prevented from having, by the technology) the personal investment of standing in the presence of an emotional person. And, I have to admit that I have "hidden" (rather than un-friended) people whose status updates constantly irritate me. So the technology lets me avoid dealing with certain people while remaining "friends" on the surface. Plus, Facebook seems to exploit people's inclination towards gossip and eavesdropping by its default of showing you the status of non-friends as long as one of your "friends" comments on the status. <br /><br />Maybe all that is a bad example because it is "church people" but lots of it seems like it is partially human nature and partially forced (or at least encouraged) by the format of the technology.<br /><br />All that sounds rather like a rant. It is more just things I think about. I'm not sure if I'm on to something or if I'm just becoming an old fogey.<br /><br />I just started reading the book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam (2000) that reportedly talks about the apparent real decline in "social capital" (people participating in groups of any kind) over the last few decades. I think the computerized social networking phenomenon is an attempt at swinging the pendulum on "social capital" back the other way. I just have my doubts on whether the Facebooks and Twitters as they exist now really have any capacity to build anything except shallow bonds.Beckynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post-71238954324732583422011-01-10T06:41:30.843-08:002011-01-10T06:41:30.843-08:00I used to get so sick of hearing about motives, mo...I used to get so sick of hearing about motives, motives, motives...I would try to do something good or right and it's still not good because my heart wasn't pure. Eventually, I gave up. Whose heart is pure anyway? Now, I don't really care what your motivation is. If you are helping people at the homeless shelter just to get your picture in the paper...I don't care. I'm just glad you are there and doing something good for someone else on the planet. <br /><br />I also wanted to comment on your comment about loosing 80% of Christian youth...if you follow the whole Family Integrated Church or Quiverfull stuff...they have invented their life style in answer to this problem. They accuse church as well and have created their own that is suppose to "save" the children. I don't think it's working. I think it is worse. <br /><br />I wanted to comment, but, I have no answers.Brendanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post-15269044225649809052011-01-09T21:27:40.231-08:002011-01-09T21:27:40.231-08:00Thanks for your comments on this. I was planning o...Thanks for your comments on this. I was planning on continuing this discussion and I may. I've been consumed about starting a new business the last three days . . . plus my thoughts are on the tragedy in Tuscan. I think there is a message there about extremism . . and of course mental health. But I will mull it over.<br /><br />Thanks JamesBret and Mindy M for visiting.<br /><br />Eagle, I think you are right. It was a powerful lesson when I saw the most righteous people I had ever known, so I thought, doing (in their secret lives) some horrible things. It put my sense of godliness on its head.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03457723022566193014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post-51924288781037861092011-01-09T11:58:19.202-08:002011-01-09T11:58:19.202-08:00Thanks for your writings. I find them both interes...Thanks for your writings. I find them both interesting and challenging, but most of all accurate. I have a great passion for young people, and if we(Christians) don't figure out how to be real and revelant we will loose them forever.Mindy Mhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07957004527879930140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post-88338696174744480052011-01-07T22:14:19.681-08:002011-01-07T22:14:19.681-08:00MJ-
I hope you are not a 12 year old from India.....MJ-<br /><br />I hope you are not a 12 year old from India...if so I would not be happy..<br /><br />Seriously...I agree with your points. All too often Christinaity comes down to be a facade for a lot of people. Under the guise of behavior modification people present an image that is far from reality. As I leanred I was hammered for talking about lust honestly, while my accountability partner lived a double life to present the image the church expected to see. Guess who was hammered by the Pharises. Part of the reason why I think Christianity can be unhealthy is that such a culture can damage your integrity. However I would also suggest in some of the circles I moved in the facade that can be Christianity can carry over into Facebook by evangelicals. <br /><br />Read the status updates...when you are reading constant updates such as "Praise God my brother made a recvoery from his motorcycle accident" to "The Lord is awesome!! I got a new job at $%#...." to " The Lord has deeply blessed us we're engaged!!" It's all about the prosperity gospel. I know you would probably agree with me but I would suggest that the prosperity gospel is a deep, deep problem for Christianity. I think many Christians are in denial about how much a problem the prosperity gospel can be. However...for me reading evangelicals status updates helped me realize that issue clearly.Eaglenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-878914472051909043.post-74106641257948770992011-01-07T21:00:30.910-08:002011-01-07T21:00:30.910-08:00interesting conversation. this is my first time t...interesting conversation. this is my first time to visit the blog. i'll be back, though; i've now subscribed.<br /><br />"The myth is, you become a Christian and over night you become a much better person than you were the day before."<br /><br />christians would do well to dispel this myth in a hurry. because the truth is that discipleship is a series of small decisions to be obedient to God which, over time, affect a greater change. the Spirit empowers this process, but there's not (often) an overnight and magical change. [though i'll certainly allow for the power of God to accomplish that if he so wishes.]<br /><br />i'm convinced that too many christians and would-be christians have been hurt because of this ridiculous expectation. and, as you've said, when everyone believes this way, all are encouraged to be dishonest.JamesBretthttp://jamesbrett.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com