April 20th, 2009
Facebook Theology
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”
Romans 5:1-2
Well, I did it. I have rebelled long enough, I guess! I gave in and joined facebook! I will admit, I tend to try to hold out against whatever is popular at the moment, and so I kept putting it off. However, last night I must have been tired, and I created an account. So, now I am in the process of trying to figure it out. For instance, I understand you become “friends” with people. I also understand that when I post something, all my “friends” will read it. What also seems to happen, however, is that all my “friends” will see what each “friend” posts, and thus then they have the opportunity to become “friends.” So far I only have 3 friends, and by this morning 2 of them have connected!
As I said, I went online late last night and signed up, and so I didn’t actually spend much time finding/requesting friends (I spent most of my time reading the “help” section!) LOL So, I went to bed thinking about facebook and then woke up thinking about it. And so I was still thinking about it when I sat down this morning to read Romans 5. The first verse jumped out at me as a perfect example of facebook!
We have peace with God (have found a new “friend”) through our Lord Jesus Christ (we were first “friends” with Jesus Christ, but because we were “friends” with him, we can now be “friends” with God)…OK, so the facebook theology is not really deep, but that fits into another thing I learned about facebook…
Facebook is not meant to really have friends, at least not really deep friends. It is, as it states, a social networking way to just stay in contact with people. However, you don’t actually ask personal questions, get “deep,” or strengthen a relationship. You really just find out the surface stuff people are doing with their time, and what they are, on the surface, thinking about. That’s where my facebook theology breaks down.
God goes deep. Neither he nor our other friend, Jesus Christ, broadcasts everything we tell them to the world. He is a friend who actually wants to know our inner thoughts, our motivations, our failures and fears.
Yes, I am on facebook, and I look forward to socially networking with people. However, I am glad that all friendships do not exist solely on facebook – what a shallow set of friends that would make! I am also so thankful that God and Jesus Christ are much more than facebook friends!