A Social Gospel for the Internet

I spend a lot of time working and playing on the Internet. Social media sites have given us all a brand new way to connect with one another. One of the great joys of my life is being able to find old friends on sites like Facebook, MySpace, Plaxo, and others. It has become part of my community of friends and family. The fact that I have not personally meet everyone I was chatted with on the Internet means nothing. As people begin to adopt more software like Skype, we will see even more of one another.
As a Christian, I believe I have a responsibility to share my faith in all things. This would logically include my interactions over the Internet. There are far too many people abusing this electronic form of community. Good role models need to be available. I know that my friends from other faith traditions share this view. I would content we all have a social mandate to share the love of God in our interactions on the Internet.
In today’s times, there are at least two distinct philosophies on how we go about “sharing the Good News” in any setting. On the one hand, we have what I like to call the “methodology of the mouth.” We share personal convictions about being Christians, and we ask others to consider doing the same. We ask others to become Christians through the acceptance of Jesus’ role in cosmic history. This role is very evangelical in nature.
On the other hand, we also share our love of God in what I like to call a “social gospel.” It refers to our actions, and our beliefs working hand in hand with one another. This type of philosophy says that our actions must match what comes out of our mouth. It ways that Jesus did more than show people a way to salvation.
These two philosophies are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they should work in consort with one another. It is simply a way to help one understand where the emphasis is often placed. It is like putting a magnifying lens on a small flow, so you can see it better.
Here are some things we can all do to better share a social gospel across our blogosphere:
1. We can remember that God created this world, and we have been left in charge of its care. Until we know exactly when God plans on coming back, we have been asked to be the world’s caretakers.
2. We can remember that God came to redeem our world, and we have been asked to continue that path of redemption in our actions and words.
3. We can joyfully accept the blessings of community, sexuality, marriage, and the family. In our current times, I believe we need a broad definition of family: we all need to raise our neighbors children by example. We need to be careful what we share on the Internet, what we forward in emails, etc. You never know where that will end up.
4. We can commit ourselves to the rights of men, women, children, youth, young adults, the aging, and people with disabilities; to improvement of the quality of life; and to the rights and dignity of all persons. We can participate in the on going discussions of these topics in our favorite blogs, chat rooms, new pages, etc. We can blog about them, write articles on them, make videos about them, etc.
5. We can be an advocate the right and duty of persons to work for the glory of God and the good of themselves and others and in the protection of their welfare in so doing; in the rights to property as a trust from God, collective bargaining, and responsible consumption; and in the elimination of economic and social distress.
6. We can use the Internet to promote peace throughout the world, to the rule of justice and law among nations, and to individual freedom for all people of the world.



Ray Province



Ray Province is a retired minister and IT programmer in the healthcare industry. He writes about issues effecting life in the Ozarks at The Celtic Ozarkian. You can reach him at contactus@celticozarkian.com or @celticozarkian on Twitter