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The Many Faces of Facebook

Here are some good thoughts that I found and thought I would share on Christians and the use of social media.
 
 
The Many Faces of Facebook:
An Open Letter to Christians Who Use Social Networks by Rob Peterson
 
There are tons of blogs and articles on the good, the bad, and the ugly of Facebook statuses out there; just ask Google about it. So why am I bothering to offer my perspective on the issue? Well, it’s not that I think I can add any new information to the conversation. However, I would like to address this issue from a Christian perspective, and in particular, I’d like to address it to my Christian friends.

With over 900 million users, Facebook has become one of the world’s largest cyber gathering places. It’s a great way to share information, to voice opinions, to have conversations, to promote people/places/things, to stay in touch with long-distance friends, and to connect with people we’ve never met face-to-face. Expressing oneself requires only a few keystrokes and the click of a mouse. But like anything else inanimate, Facebook is a tool that can be used for good or ill.

 
James, the half-brother of Jesus, knew how dangerous our speech could be. Close to 2,000 years ago, he wrote, “It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell” (James 3:5-6, MSG). The principle carries over to the written word as well, perhaps even more so. Once something is put down on “digital paper,” it’s pretty hard to take back. Read more . . .

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