(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s one from Peter McMurray, a medical student/great blogger from Northern Ireland. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how.)
The people who comment on your Christian Facebook status – By Peter McMurray
From time to time on Facebook, you will notice a Bible verse or a worship song lyric in your newsfeed. And no, that does not mean you can skip devotions and just go straight to Facebook for your daily bread. But when there is a “Christian” status, it is hard to scroll past it without feeling obliged to “like” it. (For those of you not on Facebook who don’t know what “liking” a status means – welcome to 2006!)
After all, you can’t not like God’s word, can you? This is a trick I have used on occasion when I have been in the middle of a notification drought and have been thinking about ways to get my “likes” to skyrocket. One quick Bible verse/worship song video/famous pastor quote/SCL Serious Wednesday link, and suddenly I’m getting “likes” left, right and center from all my Christian friends.
But, when you post a Christian status on Facebook, you leave yourself open to the following people posting a comment on it:
1. The theological debater
Regardless of which preacher you have quoted, he will object. And have an endless supply of links to web pages saying why that pastor is a heretic who will burn in hell. And if you try to engage in conversation with him, you will either receive the ultimate Christian put down (“I’ll pray for you”), or be told by a third party to keep such stuff out of the public eye.
2. Your pastor
You notice a comment from your pastor, and you do a mini victory dance at the keyboard. You just bagged yourself a whole dose of holy points for impressing him with your choice of verse, and you won’t be voluntold to the chair stacking committee again. It’s the elite league for you now. But then you remember that if your pastor can see your status, he can see your photos, including the ones from that party last weekend….
3. Your non-Christian work colleague
You see a comment saying ‘cool’ from that non-believer you work with and you think you have successfully used Facebook to witness to them, thanks to a handy verse from Ephesians. Small victory! But then you look at their profile and see they have recently changed their relationship status and announced to the world that they just went to the toilet. Then you realize they have merely been the victim of someone logging into their Facebook account and posting embarrassing things while pretending to be them.
Those are three that I came up with, but maybe you have encountered other types of people commenting on your Christian statuses. Share them in the comments. And, no, getting unfriended for posting a Bible verse is not the persecution Jesus warned us to expect.
What types of commenters have you seen on Facebook?
(For more awesome stuff from Peter, check out his blog, All4God)
