Critical Thinking on Media Theology
Today people in the West can hardly imagine communication without internet. The massive involvement with social media affected also the Christian community that learned to use tools to communicate with congregations. Social media helps educate Christians on religious matters. It is involved in events management and organization of church activities, that use social media options to connect and stay informed about forthcoming occurrences in church life. Internet offers diverse sources for information on Christian issues. Generally, Christian communities benefit from social media that keep them connected and give them new resources to encourage each other in their faith.
Today we are witnessing the boom of mega churches in big cities and metropolitan areas like NYC, London, Seattle, Sydney, etc. There are a number of reasons for the popularity of social media in terms of creating lasting relationship within a church community. We know that just like any other community, a Christian community first exist in reality and then it uses internet to sustain a form of communication that serves as additional exchange of information and as a form of ‘being together’ even when church members live very far away from each other.
There are two dynamics of creating communities by social media. First – media brings together people that already know each other in real life and they need to stay in touch, using their personal accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google or similar. This is the inward approach of creating and sustaining a Christian community through social media. The second dynamic is to meet people over Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google or other forms of communications, by noticing their comments, liking their pictures or sharing common interests. This is the outward approach.
The community that is created by Facebook, Twitter and Instagram has its way of communicating; it is totally dependent of these platforms to ‘see’ each other, share opinion or deliver information. Both the inward and the outward approaches to creating social media communities serves one goal – to bring together likeminded people that share common values, have similar purposes and eventually inhabit the same territory (although the last one is not prerequisite for social media members – quite on the contrary).
The members of the Christian community held together by Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram, as well as other media, can live very far away – on different continents, like Africa and Australia, for example. The lingua franca of the internet today appears to be English, although social media do their best to offer language translation from and into any popular languages, thereby enabling new members to form community and be able to communicate by using internet translation tools. Ultimately, the only condition to be a part of a Christian or any kind of media community is to have access to the internet and a device like PC, laptop, iPhone, tablet, etc.
Creating a social media business community requires listening to what consumers want, communicating content that will gain the trust of the prospective clients, engaging in building conversations and monitoring through social media tools. Christian social media community has a different focus. It serves the purpose to engage and to connect likeminded Christians by overcoming space and time limits to keep in touch, encouraging each other with scriptures, updates, daily devotionals and references to other Christian resources. Often, contemporary Christian people feel isolated and suffer in this world just as Jesus has warned them they would suffer.
Imagine a young person, who has graduated recently from college, found a job working for a company with no likeminded Christian co-workers, spending 40 hours a week working on worldly projects. This could be quite alienating from the purposes of God and one could feel threatened with losing the focus of one’s Christian life. But social media communities are there to remind Christians that there is a source for gaining strength and energy. Christian social media communities are careful never to draw attention to themselves, but to give glory to God no matter what their members do. They share excitement about receiving blessings or write about encountering difficulties. No matter what the purpose, the bond that keeps a Christian social media community together is the same as in a real life Christian community – this is the focus on Jesus and His mission
Social media communities give their members the opportunity to make new acquaintances by getting to know new believers and trying to understand what they are thinking, what they are doing at the moment, where they work, who their friends are, where they go to spend their free time, or where they just are (thought map locator on internet), what their interests are, where they recommend to go shopping, what articles and book they are reading. New personal relationships are built through social media, via personal messages, by reacting to someone else’s post or commentaries and also through planning to attend the same events. The facts that a member of one media community has the same friends can be a reason for engaging in an online communication with people whom they have previously never heard of.
Social media can be extremely flexible in bringing people together, because in addition to offering photographs and personal information about work place and education, it can also reveal an access to “the heart” of the other person, who has shared opinion on religious beliefs, political issues or average everyday remarks. Social media is a good mediator to members of Christian community. The Facebook options of ‘sending friend requests’ and ‘liking’ comments and photos are sources for creating new friendships that can extend in real life. Those serve further the purposes of strengthening Christian communities that decades ago used to live their own lives in a small circle of congregation and only knew each other for years attending the same services and who would not have even met the church members in the nearby Christian community. Social media makes personal boundaries and church walls much more transparent than they were years ago.
Social media communities give the opportunities old friends that live far away to stay connected and remain “on the same page,” that is – to share experiences and thoughts, to exchange instant messages, even though circumstances require them to be apart geographically. It is such a blessing to be able to see how former Christian friends, with whom one has been to school, university or on a mission trip are doing at the moment. One can always go on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and follow their updates or pictures, can read about new praise reports or receive troubled messages on what needs to be prayed about. And social media community is not like being part of the same email list. It gives a further emotional bond, creating some kind of illusion that the person is more present than in reality – by seeing their profile photo or other signs they have left on their pages. Social media substitute in an effective and emotional way for the presence of someone who is far away. This strengthens the Christian community and the connection between Christians.
Social media communities use their network platforms to enlarge their personal knowledge. They share updates about new books, magazines, album releases, concert and anything happening in their church life. Recently, there was the case that through social media an idea was passed to a famous team of Christian songwriters to create a new song containing the Christian creed. This tweet by a random Christian man was re-tweeted a few times till it reached the songwriters. They took the matter to heart and, after a few months of creating process, the song called ‘This is I believe (The Creed)’ was recorded in a new album, which is now very popular among Pentecostal Christians.
Christian online media communities just like any other communities, share tips about lifestyle, shopping, business, design and creative ideas. It is comforting to know that, in a world with endless communication option, one is still a part of a like-minded online community of believers, whom one can trust and from whom one can take advises about practical problems in life. Social media for Christians manages to successfully create an oasis of a ‘feel good’ atmosphere , where one shares information, while, for example travelling abroad by sharing Instagram pictures, or staying at home cooking and communicating with friends what makes one feel good. This gives them ideas on how they can improve their lives.
Characteristics of Social Media Communities
As we already mentioned above, there are different forms of social media that create various types of communities. Facebook, for example creates long term person-based social media communities, sustaining already existing friendships and in addition creating new ones. Some applications of Facebook, however, enable creation of pages or events sustaining short-term social media communities. They gather people with common interests, inform about different events and enable long-term social media community members to add their friends to events or pages they might like or support. Generally, social media communities are formed around a few factors, which are: sharing common interests, having common purposes, sustaining communication with other believes, organization-driven targets and finally focusing on using internet resources.
The social media Christian communities sharing common interests usually are linked to the same pages relating to worship music, Christian books or magazines, Christian leaders and popular figures like pastors, worship leaders or speakers, or anyone in contemporary or past periods of Christianity that has done something of importance to the Christian cause – to abolish injustice, to write a new album, to witness to Hollywood celebrities or to out as a born-again Christians. The options are endless and here the Christian community makes a good use of all that social media communication offers. Authors create pages to inform people, who ‘like’ them, about forthcoming editions, to engage their fans in quizzes or to encourage them to win a new book by send question for a webinars; bloggers writing on various interesting topics connect via social media with people interested in the same ideas they research on – for example on how to sustain a fulfilled marriage life or stay a Christian single in a secular society. There are the so called ‘Christian celebrities’ that fight for social justice and keep moral values intact by presenting to the world through social media that the Christian ideals are alive. All those figures gather their communities and social media enables exchange of ideas and views, supporting each other and making plans on how to complete their common purposes. Social media is a good way to connect with believers with similar interests.
Purpose-driven social media communities can be classified in two major types - a) fighting for social justice (to end human trafficking through the ‘A21 campaign;’ to help homeless people through the ‘Green Van’ project; to support Christian women in business through ‘Propel’) or - b) educating the Christian community through online or media contributions. Social media groups that fight for social justice are for example the human trafficking abolitionists, who vow to exterminate the problem of human trafficking, which is the number one problem for communities affecting all from first world to third world countries. There are also local groups, that connect through social media organized by charities to deal with problems of homelessness in big cities and similar social causes that find fuel in social media communication, which offer tools for more Christians to get informed, to connect and to join.
In terms of the purpose to educate Christians – online journalists offer profound researches. There is the minor form of online journalism – blogging, where many ideas are exchanged thought social media and are communicated to Christians. Bloggers either use separate blog pages or there is a blog connected to the web page of a ministry or famous Christian leader (like those of Jentzen Franklin or Joel Osteen, for example, or of publishing houses like Harvest House Publishing). There are online publications on finances (by Bach); on Christian marriage (by John Bevere), on how to stay single and chaste (by Phylicia Delta Blog), on Christian psychology (by Dr. Robi), on how to relate to other people (Relate ministry) – the number of topics is endless really. Being part of a social community could refer one to any kind of information suitable for personal development and growth in the Christian faith.
Regarding the communication with other believers, as mentioned above, the social media is used for building up through posts and status updates where praising God, giving advises on practical issues, posting pictures, finding a way to quickly solve trivial problems, exchanging recipes or experiences about raising children, sharing favorite worship songs, raising awareness on social injustice issues becomes interactive when re-tweeted or suggested by friend, who also might advise on ‘liking’ certain pages or ‘tag’ one in a picture . The effect of social media is that it quickly includes new people. There are also Christian dating cites, where one could search for a lifelong Christian partner with the chance to build a faith-based family.
The organization-driven social media communities gather around a church community. They connect through a church page, tweeter of an organization or a ministry, or ministers’ web sites (like for example those of Joyce Meyer or Joseph Prince). In essence those communities either support a Christian institution, like a ministry, charity or outreach campaign, or they help Christians finding a new accommodation, job, prayer community, Bible study group, youth group, etc.
Social media communities that are focused on using online resources share the newest Christian movies, Christian worship songs,videos with teaching by famous preachers, electronic books or abstracts – anything that could serve as source for information. They usually take advantage of online teachings, internet videos or worship songs – those are longer messages in video, audio or written format that are used to build-up Christian communities.
Similarities and Differences between Social Media Communities
The similar among all Social media communities is that they have a common purpose – to connect with like-minded Christians, who aim to spread the Gospel in their communities and to obey the Lord by showing love to their neighbors and also by demonstrating how the love of God changes them. Christianity is a community of people that adore to communicating and sharing wisdom gained either from experiences or through Bible studies, or similar academic researches. Social media supports communities in their everyday challenges and stimulates their long-term communication. It is indispensible for sustaining communication in 21st century.
The different in all communities starts with the churches that their members attend and with their doctrinal teaching. Today there are no great differences in term of ethnicity and nationality. In the age of multimedia everyone is free to join any church and any group. Especially online communities seldom set any boundaries. Doctrinal variations divided into four main branches of Christianity probably cause the main differences in real life communities as well as in social media communities. There are Orthodox communities, Catholic communities, Evangelical communities (in many branches) and Pentecostal communities. Further, age group or location can be criteria for forming an online community, but in general one can see how social media helps overcome differences and enables communication among diverse people that otherwise would not be able to communicate and share information.
How Social Media May Fit or not Fit with Christianity
There is no doubt that the internet changed the world. It merged public with private spheres and enabled mobile devices to motivate creativity. There are many people that work as web designers, online writers or social media councilors. In the meantime, outing on Google, Twitter or Internet enables people’s minds to be controlled, because once a personal statement is made on social media, everyone would know what values this person holds and what are his/her personal interests. The internet is a space similar to the real world – there are dangerous people out there working as hackers to bring potential harms. There are corporations that are said to take advantage of people’s readiness to share personal details and exposing their friends’ network. Internet can be just as harmful as the outside world we live in. The network is useful for corporate purposed and monitoring just as it is useful for “artists, designers, scholars, activists and programmers, who work on alternatives to corporate, and hence centralized social media.” Christian online communities represent such “alternative, decentralized social networks.”
In addition, Christian online communities break the mold of thinking that online communities generally communicate to “virtual intelligentsia.” Quite on the contrary – they are a community that is a strong outside the internet group and have little to add to their unique identity through internet messages.
The Christian faith has always been a personal experience – that is the reason why God send us His beloved Son to personally communicate the message of the Kingdom of God. In that sense, if the individual touch and face-to face communication was not so important, God would have spared all of us the efforts of 2000 years to build and preserve the Christian community. Presence and verbal, and also non-verbal communications are very important. What is said and what is not said in dialogues carry almost equal amount of information for the participant in an act of speech.
However, we live in a time where alienation is enemy number one to communities, families and different age groups. Social media partially contribute to that, but also partially solve the problem. It is an interesting phenomenon that most forms of communications are reduced to online chatting, commenting on online publications or similar internet activities, where we react to what other people have to share, but at the same time genuinely desire to be paid attention to. We cannot ignore the fact that online presence steals hours and hours that normally we would have spent looking for good conversations with friends face-to-face.
Today the connection between religion and media is a field of study generating theory-building and requiring research. Organized religion has its constant presence in social media through web sites, sermons and publications. Media helps community to absorb new religious messages like sermons and testimonies. Media with spiritual messages create the need to redefine religion in modern terms and to view traditional forms of spreading religious education like temples as abstract entities today. Just as Jesus in the Bible predicted to his disciples that they will be the living temple of God, in the same way today the Christian community using various forms of online teachings experiences individual building-up, not bound to a religious building or an institution. In a way, the online communication that the internet presents is symbol of “democracy itself,” allowing individual approach to receiving spiritual teachings. The internet presents multiple options to join a spiritual community and to participate in a Christian debate.
Conclusion
In that sense, social media communities both win and lose at the same time. We explained above how many are the advantages of online social groups and how Christian genuinely enjoy being connected through social media. However, Christians are always cautious not to lose balance. Their church communities and church activities save them from becoming mere internet tools for chatting with other robotized creatures on social media. If anything – Christians have more to win from the internet communities than to lose, because they remain focused on the Creator and their primary aim it to serve Him. They have a personal form of communication with the Creator through prayer that no internet can replace or maneuver. Internet communication is good and can be advantageous, but will always remain a secondary form of communication for Christian communities.
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