Face to Face or Facebook?Theology on Social Media

Monday 20 February 2012

CCL Open Night

1. how does it work?2. a crafted identity…

or a window to the soul?3. the social impulse4. using it for good5. how technology changes us6. Facebook: the corporation7. ancient wisdom for the public square8. how’s it work again?9. opting out: the Amish option?

Jesse Rice,

The Church of Facebook: How the hyperconnected are redefining community.

Colorado Springs, Colo.: David C. Cook, 2009.

Tim Challies,

The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion.

Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011.

1. How does it work?

communicatejesus.com

1. How does it work?

2. Crafted identity or window to the soul?

The pastor‘The mouth speaks [or, the status is updated with] what the heart is full of’ (Luke 6:45); that is, I can usually tell what’s most important to someone, what/who they treasure, by reading their posts for about a month.

But it’s not an exact science, and it’s not advisable to rebuke and discipline a young adult under my pastoral oversight simply because I ‘read into’ his latest status update. A face to face conversation is always better

2. Crafted identity or window to the soul?

Rice, pp 213-14‘Take a look at your profile – the pictures you’ve posted, the information you’ve shared. Does the content reflect your God-given nature? Is it ‘true’ to what you really see? If you’re funny, by funny. If you’re artistic, be artistic. If you’re neither, just be you…Are you being ‘you’ in the way you interact with your Facebook friends?”

2. Crafted identity or window to the soul?

3. The social impulse

3. The social impulse

Jesus: ‘… greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly …’

(Mar 7:22 NIV)

Paul: ‘… quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, slander, gossip, arrogance…’

(2 Cor 12:20 HCSB)

3. The social impulse

A graduate student

“Not being on [Facebook] allows me to envy being in on who’s saying what on Facebook… I am a little out of the loop… Not being on has hindered being able to maintain light-level relationships [and] could have hindered being able to develop deeper connections. It’s doubtlessly hindered me from knowing what people really think about various things too”

3. The social impulse

… our standard way of evaluating new technology

… long list of excellent suggestions in booklet

4. Using it for good

Brock, Brian. Christian Ethics in a Technological Age. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Michigan. 2010.

5. How technology changes us

Young woman ‘A’“the sub-text that you have to have a home computer or an iPhone to feel part of a church community. Event invitations can sometimes be sent purely via Facebook; therefore if you’re not on Facebook, you’re not invited.

I fear for those in our churches who don’t have easy access to expensive technology, and who may already be feeling a sense of exclusion for other reasons”

5. How technology changes us

Young man ‘B’“What I hate is all the time and energy devoted to it takes my gaze off my own reality… I have plenty of people in ‘this world’ to get to know and yet my gaze is taken off the immediate reality of my life to the intangible reality of my life – connections from long ago and friends I do not see in my street, my café or my workplace.”

5. How technology changes us

6. Facebook: the corporation

The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no-one buys their cargoes any more – cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men.

Revelation 18:11-13

7. Ancient wisdom in the public square

A fool does not delight in understanding, but only wants to show off his opinions. (Proverbs 18:2)

7. Ancient wisdom in the public square

A fool does not delight in understanding, but only wants to show off his opinions. (Proverbs 18:2)

A shrewd person conceals knowledge, but a foolish heart publicises stupidity. (Proverbs 12: 23)

… how are your comments looking?

It is honorable for a man to resolve a dispute, but any fool can get himself into a quarrel.

(Proverbs 20:3).

… making flames or putting them out?

7. Ancient wisdom in the public square

One that has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin,but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

(Proverbs 18:24).

… what sort of friends are they, really?

7. Ancient wisdom in the public square

Wisdom is the focus of the perceptive, but a fool's eyes roam to the ends of the earth.

(Proverbs 17:24).

… living in fantasy or reality?

7. Ancient wisdom in the public square

Young woman ‘A’

“I think it’s important to not let it replace “meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing” and that we use it to ‘spur one another one to love and good deeds”.

(Heb 10:24-25)

7. Ancient wisdom in the public square

Young woman ‘A’

“I think it’s important to not let it replace “meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing” and that we use it to ‘spur one another one to love and good deeds”.

(Heb 10:24-25)

Church:1. gathers

7. Ancient wisdom in the public square

Young woman ‘A’

“I think it’s important to not let it replace “meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing” and that we use it to ‘spur one another one to love and good deeds”.

(Heb 10:24-25)

Church:1. gathers2. trains

7. Ancient wisdom in the public square

Young woman ‘A’

“I think it’s important to not let it replace “meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing” and that we use it to ‘spur one another one to love and good deeds”.

(Heb 10:24-25)

Church:1. gathers2. trains3. includes

7. Ancient wisdom in the public square

more about how church forms us …

chs 18, 25, 34

8. How’s it work again?

Rice:

1. Not when you wake and before you sleep

8. How’s it work again?

Rice:

1. Not when you wake and before you sleep

2. Mindful and authentic facebook-ing

8. How’s it work again?

Rice:

1. Not when you wake and before you sleep

2. Mindful and authentic facebook-ing

3. ‘Adopt a friend’ (but we add: of same gender)

Us:

4. Try Facebook’s ‘Lists’

8. How’s it work again?

Us:

4. Try Facebook’s ‘Lists’

5. Protect yourself from envy

8. How’s it work again?

Us:

4. Try Facebook’s ‘Lists’

5. Protect yourself from envy

6. Tap into people, pages and blogs that increase your awareness

8. How’s it work again?

Us:

4. Try Facebook’s ‘Lists’

5. Protect yourself from envy

6. Tap into people, pages and blogs that increase your awareness

7. Don’t practice self-deception

8. How’s it work again?

9. Opting out: The Amish Option?

9. Opting out: The Amish Option?

‘We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a telephone. It’s not just how you use the technology that concerns us. We’re also concerned about what kind of person you become when you use it.’

- Amish man

Thank you for joining us.