All right many of you know just how much of my self-worth I invest into this little blog. When hits are up so is my mood and vice-versa. Well now you can all make me feel very loved and appreciated by joining my Facebook blog network!
On a slightly more serious note – I’d really love to find out who some of the folk are out there reading this blog so join the network and say hi.
Who are the biggest ‘influencers’ in western Christianity today? Who are the real movers and shakers in the Christian public sphere? There’s only one guaranteed place to turn to for real answers when it comes to social influence: Facebook!
So here’s the top 10 Christian icons according to Facebook groups (…well the top 10 I could find, or chose to find anyway).
1. Rob Bell – Rob is the undisputed heavyweight of Christian Facebook leaders. His Nooma/Rob Bell group weighs in with 2775 members.
2. John Piper – The Pope of the Reformed tradition runs with a 1423 member group.
3. Donald Miller – Christian author of the moment Donald Miller weighs in with a group of 1203 members.
4. Mark Driscoll – The future Pope of the Reformed tradition ‘resurges’ into 4th spot with a group of 1059 members.
5. John MacArthur – Spreading Grace to You MacArthur rolls in at 5th with a group of 647 members.
6. Brian McLaren – Everyone is going to hell with Brian McLaren in this group of 624 members.
7. CJ Mahaney – If you’re Reformed and Charismatic then he’s your man! CJ whips out a group of 425 members.
8. Tim Keller – The missional maestro from New York racks up a group of 360 members.
9. Matt Chandler – The local ‘Village’ pastor steps up to the big league with a group of 264 members.
10. Benny Hinn – Through an absolute miracle Benny wiggles his way into the top 10 with a group of 215 members (although I couldn’t quite figure out if the group was an appreciation group or something he shouldn’t show to his family).
And there you have it – on the flawless authority of Facebook. (PS – let me about any other interesting ‘Christian Icon’ groups).
This whole Golden Compass thing is really causing a ridiculous number of Christians to get their knickers in a knot. The Facebook group entitled “Do NOT Support the Golden Compass” had 158 873 members at the time of me writing this post. That’s 158 873 people who haven’t read 1 Corinthians 5 and Paul telling the Corinthian church not judge non-Christians for behaving like non-Christians. Seriously what do you expect? People might say ‘but they kill God in the end!’ – but if you start judging here where do you stop? Should I be picketing the sequel for Finding Nemo if it ever comes out?
I think the movie is great gospel opportunity. It puts God-talk on the table and its a great chance to talk about the God who really was killed by non-Christians 2000 years ago. Let’s focus on the main things and not have hernias over talking polar bears!
I’m toying with the idea of trying to pull off a Reformission South Africa Conference next year. There’s a discussion thread on facebook talking about it. Check out the group, if you haven’t already and let me know what you think. If you don’t have a facebook account then leave a comment here.
With so much dispute going on about the validity of systematic theology in contemporary theology an unlikely source has sprung to the defence of the Reformed doctrine of ‘the Depravity of Humanity‘. Opponents of this doctrine will have a difficult time at refuting such clear evidence presented on such a grand scale.
Researchers scanning through the myriads of groups that have been spawned on the social networking site, Facebook, recently stumbled across a group entitled, ‘If this group Reaches 150,000 members I will name my son Batman‘. Upon probing a little further they discovered a discussion thread posted on the group entitled, ‘YOU ARE ALL SO STUPID‘, at the time of print the thread contained 326 posts by 154 different people. In this thread the initial author, a JOn Bennet, claims that the entire group is a hoax and that the group author has no intention of naming his son ‘Batman’ even if the group reaches 150,000 members. What follows this initial comment is a barrage of people, who clearly suffer with serious problems of boredom and anger management, ranting with the most colourful of langauge about what a “%&##!!#$!” JOn Bennet is. Researches who scanned the thread concluded that the only word that adequately described this sort of behaviour was the word ‘depravity’.
Reformed theologians around the world delighted in this finding as at vindicates a doctrine that has long been treasured by this particular tradition. One pastor remarked in celebration that he was going to start a group entitled, ‘If 150,000 people join this group I’ll name my son Calvin’
The following quote is from the description of the Facebook group ‘Emerging Church Conversation in South Africa’ – I’m presuming that means that Roger Saner wrote it.
“Within South Africa, we know from our history that in spite of over 70% of the country being Christian, we managed to divorce our private faith from our public beliefs quite successfully, taking a long time to denounce structural evil (at least, this applies to the whities – others always knew that this thing was wrong). And what is more, we used Biblical justification for Apartheid…which means, as we move beyond that, we need to see the incorrect ways in which we approached (and used) the Bible.”
I admire what Roger writes, IMHO he speaks more clearly about the EC in South Africa than anyone else I’ve read. We don’t always land up in the same place theologically, but Roger is willing to dialogue and to listen carefully – something we could all learn from in the EC conversation. I’ve pulled this section up because to me it seems to indicate that there’s a relationship of sorts between nominal Christianity in South Africa and the fact that Emerging ideas seem to be finding something of a footing in the South African theological landscape. Is part of the conversation a reaction, on the part of some, to the seemingly widespread nominalism that exists in South Africa?
If this is the case then again the ‘reformed’ (theologically) community and the ‘emerging’ community have a point of contact – they both despair at the levels of nominalism. Now maybe this can help to turn the conversation from discussing whether the EC is divergent or not, to how do we address nominalism. The two sides can then present their suggestions and dialogue, graciously, about the strengths and weaknesses in both approaches – and maybe, just maybe, they can ‘emerge’ with an approach that attempts to show the utmost fidelity to the revealed purposes of God and at the same time helps us to help each other, rather than constantly talking about why the EC is second only to the Antichrist in terms of heresy.
Facebook is fun – but I also want to test out just how useful it is. So I’ve started a ‘Reformission South Africa‘ group on Facebook, the aim is to encourage South Africans who subscribe to the reformed faith to get on with living out the entailments of the gospel. If you’re interested check out the group – if Facebook is as influential as it seems maybe revival will break out in SA.
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