Social media creates an entirely new opportunity to bring people together in discussions of religion and faith and also creates new challenges for resilience due to the open nature of social media.
New sites like http://www.christiancontent.org/ and http://www.faithbase.com/ provide a dedicated home for Christians, and powerhouse sites like Digg and StumbleUpon also make it easy to begin discussions and to fellowship online.
The open access made available to these sites is great and can also be a bit of a downer for people who would simply like to have a peaceful discussion without the “evangelical atheists” coming along to preach the benefits of their self-centered lives. To each their own, but it would be nice sometimes for the atheists to just go off in their little corner and do whatever it is that they do for themselves.
Social media and religion wouldn’t be fully represented without blogs and there are plenty of christian blogs out there.
http://www.christianblog.com/
http://www.smartchristian.com/
http://persecutionblog.com/
Sites like these provide a great refuge for people seeking positive content online and sometimes have a problem resisting the train wreck like allure of TMZ.com.
Many individual churches are building online communities as well. McLean Bible Church has built a wide range of Internet hooks include online study groups, podcasts and even the ability to watch their popular service online.
I think the point of all of this is that there is plenty of room for religion in social media and it’s even a great place to explore it because of your ability to network with people and to hold open discussions. When the occasional bonehead comes along, you squelch them or kill them with love. That all depends on where you’re at and what you’re currently discussing.
What do you think? Have you found the Internet a good place for fellowship and for meeting other people of your own faith? What have your experiences been?
Please leave a comment below.
[tags]social media,religion,christian,faith,web2.0[/tags]