The Gospel According to Facebook

I don’t mean to brag but I am on Facebook – a lot!

See nothing to brag about there. In fact, I should probably cut back some of my “facebooking” – I love how we’ve turned a social media site into a part of speech.

VERB! That’s what’s happening.

The more time I spend mindlessly scrolling through what my friends from high school did over the weekend and who is seeing what movie the more I am aware of how it is used as a means to express your personal feeling and beliefs. You can freely rail against Liberals, openly assail the Tea Party, support this cause or that, post a picture for an hour to raise awareness for Autism, MS and the need for the BUCS to dump their failing…TEAM.

OK – I wanted to get mine in there too.

The GATFb

Faceboook is also a place where you can apostatize your friends and family by posting “Jesus loves you” pictures – which He does, or a random scripture that undoubtedly  a friend will tell you is exactly what they needed to read – and that is great but I am deeply trouble by another Christian themed posting, I call it the Gospel According to Facebook.

And this is NOT good news.

The “GATFb” as I frequently refer to it as – well as recently as thirty seconds ago – is really two things. First, it’s bullying – another thing you can find that’s railed against – and intimidation. The picture above is clearly telling us that if we don’t repost it Jesus will stop loving us. That  he’ll deny us in front of his father. Second – and much more important in my opinion, is this is simply not scriptural – not in any way what so ever.

The bullying issue is pretty easy to assuage.

Just STOP doing it.

Stop telling people that they somehow love Jesus less than you if they don’t repost your picture for an hour. It’s senseless especially since you have no idea what is in anyone’s heart other than your own.

Not to mention it’s reckless. You seriously run the risk of causing someone to doubt or even walk away from their faith just because they would not re-post your picture.

Seriously? This is your idea of loving “others as yourself”?

I don’t have a problem with posting scripture to encourage or even educate your “friends”  but threats that Jesus will “deny” them in front  of his father if they don’t cave to peer pressure – irresponsible.

Easy Believeism 

For me, this falls into the category of “Easy Believeism” which is not really belief at all but is rather quite dangerous.  Is the idea to scare people into following Jesus?

“Post this and Jesus will love you. Fail to post it and Jesus will send wombats to your house and they’ll carry away your children, pets or your favorite sports memorabilia.”

Honestly, it is a kin to a chain letter.

This is another of Satan’s lies and to be fair, it’s good. Since all good lies have some truth, this is based on something that Jesus said according to the Gospel of Matthew.

In Chapter 10 verse 33 Jesus does say “But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” The problem is, this is not intended as a warning to those that have made the decision to follow Christ.

It is meant for people that  DO NOT.

It is not consistent with the Bible to suggest that my salvation is in any way in jeopardy because I do not re-post your pretty picture with scary words. In fact, it could cause someone who is on the verge of real faith to teeter back in fear and never accept the truth of God’s love or its security.

The biggest reason this whole thing troubles me is because of something Matthew wrote earlier in his Gospel and is why I am convinced this whole thing is a deception master minded by the “father of lies”.

In chapter 7, Mathew quotes Jesus saying in verses 22 and 23, “On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’”

I think it is safe to say that posting on Facebook will get lumped into the “prophecy” category.

Do you think these “share” post are dangerous to someone’s faith or to their salvation? DO you re-post for fear of being denied?