The Impact of Social Media on the Life of Christian Believers Living in the Post-Modern Society

From genesis through to revelation we find God being revealed to us as creator and sustainer of everything. Some misguided notions have found their ways into our thinking and made us to believe that whatever is happening around is nature driven. Considering God’s powerful actions on nature depicted from old testaments through prophets such as Elijah and Moses, we can attest to his power. Similarly miracles performed by Jesus during his mission convince me to think otherwise. The emergence and use of social media was long prophesized by Elijah and Paul saying, “In those days the wisdom of men will greatly multiply” and truth will lose its value among many”. Then advancement in technology has taken the world by storm, this has left me wondering “is there any impact of these social media on the life of Christian believer living in this post-modern society?” My findings has gotten through moments of personal reflections and study of the surrounding has indicated social media in any format (journalism, promotion, sales and advertisement) has captured the very essence of human leaving them to behave as perverts and sycophants of an “higher” order other than God.

Many Christians are turning to apps and memes to express their faith instead of churches. This raises intriguing questions about the future of the world’s largest religion Introduction. A worldview is how someone looks at life, reasons, understands life and everything in it (Weider & Gutierrez, 2011) which makes understanding of Christian worldview that users the bible to filter for purpose of understanding the world around us. It is can also be refers as the framework of beliefs and ideas through which a Christian fraternity interprets the world and interact with it. Various denominations of Christianity have different worldviews on some issue based on biblical interpretation, but many thematic elements are commonly agreed-upon within the Christian worldview.

Worldview has been greatly touched by Paul in his letter to the Romans in areas of natural world, human identity and human relationships. Personally I believe in the existence of God borrowing from Romans 1:20 that reads “for since the creation of the world Gods invisible qualities –his eternal power and divine source- have clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse”(NIV). From the above we can see God in all he has made. Looking the world around us leaves us to believe that he the creator and surely he does exist. God created man in his image so as to worship him. Man was created to seek truth. Truth seeking involves gaining knowledge which is dependent on how one views reality and truths. And through man’s exploration here comes a social media, which has captured the attention of human kind through its desirable pictures and videos. A picture is worth a thousand words.

What makes the screen so desirable and addictive?

Fast moving, rapidly changing HD color images are continuing to win hands down against boring small black print on a white page of the bible. Satan is well aware of the power of the visual. How did he tempt Eve in the garden of Eden? “When she saw that the tree was pleasant to the eyes she took of the fruit”. Note the progression: saw, pleasant, took. How did Satan try to tempt Jesus Christ? He gave Him a vision of the glory of the world’s beautiful kingdoms. If Christ would just worship Satan, He could take the kingdoms for Himself.

How does Satan work today?

Through the “lust of the eyes, ” he tempts people with the attractive delights of “this world”. Lust, when it has conceived, brings forth sin. Hence it is upon this background that I shall discuss the social media and Christian worldview with the specific reference to; impact of social media to Christian worldview.

Social media and Christian worldview

Traditionally church (Christ) and media (culture) are considered as dichotomous worlds. Over the years there is a clear tension so to speak between the two if not an outright contradiction. There is an intersection between congregation’s inherent theology and its online practice. It further reflects how Christian’s communities can faithfully enter the online community. Corporate media generally reflects the cultural landscape which in turn shapes our societal values and beliefs. Social media according to Jayson deceives us to believe the oldest lies about social media. However in a more meaningful manner the two (faith and media) should work as one, a conduit and tool for transformation. Sadly, both region and media compete for our time and values. The contemporary corporate media has such a tremendous momentum and impacts such that if not keenly observed may make the church to be inconsequential to the of an ordinary but modern day youth in faith. Through the years spanning over 30 years, scholars have emphasized the lived experience of the church rooted in a time and place.

The emergence of social media prompted Jim Rice to encourage thinking about ecclesiology from the perspective of its lived experience in a postmodern (digitized) age. The old testament of the holy bible cites many examples which provide modern man with clear guidelines for the use of scientific methods of communication (journalism, promotion, sales and advertising). The online community grants us its users to “escape”, “transform”, and “redefine” our lives in endless of manner without judgment at least not from the person who knows us directly. Mobile and video media and organizational growth Faith in the age of social media has been increasingly challenging, it brings about both positive and negative implications pegged upon the key teachings of the bible.

Recently I was sitting at my living room and reflected deeply on the sad implications of social media to young person; I remembered some of old encounters I had had while travelling to work. I had sat next to a strangely looking young man. For the entire period I cud feel intrigued and connected she was with her laptop. I initially thought she was a graphic surveyor or rather a structural engineer judging the amazing 3D high-tech visuals she was working on. I later come to learn that she was rather into fashion design. She was up looking for other avenues to revamp her career. She was connected to secondlife. com that is described as “world with endless possibilities”. It is perceived that this allows one to live a life without boundaries guided by only ones imagination. This is practically one of the many virtual worlds offering entry into previously unimagined spaces. As a consequence I came to realize that these individuals have blurred concept of reality and only consider superficial things. To them religion and faith is unheard of. This was actually at time when my passion for social change has been clouded by systems and institutions and my faith in church. This is what is popularly known as the greatest movement of the 21st century. It so extend eroded my total understanding of Christianity.

Through the years I have been yearning of owning my own mobile and laptop so to speak. I never thought I would soon be controlled and torn between choosing my bible and my mobile phone regarding what to pick especially when going to church. I have come to realize that social media (mobile) for that matter caused strange dynamics to emerge in my soul. Now I am more curios and obsessed on the no of people who react to my post either by page view or likes. As social media integrates into our lives, it slowly becomes an increasingly stronger role in our notions of values, worth and identity. This I learnt while thinking about what other people think or say about me. This necessitated me checking my phone regularly to confirm from the social app. This made my concentration in church to deviate. I could find myself chatting in social media rather than reading bible verses. The voices of Babel live on-“come let us make a name for ourselves “but in such a world God continues to summon the children of Abraham, come, follow me, and I will make your name great”. God actually made us to be identified and satisfied with real relationships.

We are always reminded in to seek Gods face and name. In pursuit to seek our own glory only leads to more shame. Some may ask, ” What roles does video playing have on a Christian social life?” Everything we do either propels Gods mission forward or hinders the embodiment of his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven on culture evangelism. As I was doing my research with regards to social media videos, I came to the conclusion that they are totally not healthy for a religious life of a young person. Most importantly videos with less than 24hrs life span calls for urgency to view before it disappear. I had a very successful start on platforms like, facebook, instagram, whatsapp and snapchat that allow video. Currently most people use the snap platform to capture videos, some videos so as to view them later. Now marketers are getting really worked up about snapchat as a promising platform to reach enormous number of people. Over time thinking about religion through these videos there images meant to portray God in a certain aspect and Satan in another. People are generally less religious in such videos. They portray that the perceived “success” they have is a consequence of their hard work and unrelenting efforts to sort themselves relying on the fundamental pillar that “God help those who help themselves”. They are blinded and as a result doubting the presence and very essence of God as the creator and provider to all its humanity and everything in it. They utterly forget the vital aspect spoken in Mathew chapter 6 regarding where our help come from. I have reflected deeply and consider this as new snares of the devil to capture the heart of a young in church. According to social media marketing research 2018 63% of businesses have started using video content, it has cited up to eight reasons to justify this shift in market in a bid to stay relevant and current and the church of God has not been left. This has practically moved us from the ancient truth by alluding that “we are what others think we are not what God made us to be”. By maintaining this digital identity can severely pull our hearts away from Christ. As revealed by a Chinese website yy. com our hearts are slowly inclining to honor. The dynamic china is synonymous to the vanity and futility of our own digital pursuit for honor in whatever form. Sadly enough- just like my friend- some enters the social with a goal of “social media evangelism”. Which they do for some time and then the reality dawns that slowly we are converted by the very things we want to rebuke that are considered “shameful” in a Christian life.

In the end instead of the church growing, members are lost through the social platforms. Based on the remarks of a famous scholar (Erick Qualman) that “we don’t have a choice on whether to use social media, the question is how well do we do it”. It left me speechless. In the wake of this quote I decided to do some digging and up with the following very fundamental facts about social media:

• 50% of the world’s population is under the age of 50years
• 97% of millennia’s have joined at least one social media platform
• There are on average 700 tweets per second
• There are 5 million images and videos uploaded each day on instagram and Snapchat.

From these findings some obvious conclusions can be made, the 97% millennial who use social media at least 50% don’t have active access to laptop or computer but rather a mobile phone. It goes unsaid that the obvious seismic shift in communication has been made possible via the use of mobile phone making a much hyper connected community. The church has a tendency of pre-packaged spirituality which lacks two things- to be valued and belonging. Belonging has been considered by most young people as the greatest need than adhering to a message prompting the rise of “facebook church”.

With the rise of post-modernism which is characterized by rejection of institutional church necessitating pastors and Christians to meet in the cyberspace, It has become increasingly evident through several years of reading the bible and religious books that God is everywhere in culture. There are many conversions on social media about the latest movies; music etc and this have embedded parallels that point to spiritual truths, which for a discerning Christian is an opportunity to point out God in culture. We are slowly becoming “clicktians” thinking we are growing spiritually but not really. We promptly like pages instructing us to type “AMEN” or “like”. We exhibit lots of empathy to what we see in the social but fail to do anything to a neighbor undergoing similar situations as the ones we empathize for. There was a time when I was obsessed with the number of people reacting to my posts. I was so much concerned about how my media audience perceived me. “Do they fancy me?” I had developed elevated anxiety levels. Days of limited page views were discouragement to me. I thought social media could bring self-esteem to me as I interact with other people. The sad reality dawned on me when I became much disconnected to the world. Many suicide cases have been strongly tied to cyber bullying especially among young people. Death shows how enormous social media is to the life of a believer. This goes far in explaining the implications of mobile phones to the lives of a Christian youth with far reaching consequences.

Conclusion

My fear is that Christianity stands to lose an entire generation of young believers, particularly those who feel no pride in faith and view church as disconnected from their daily experiences of reality. Social media has brought communication revolution to the world and this is the way people communicate, presenting both positive as well as negative impacts to their spiritual understanding. From the foregoing the negatives are far much significant compared to the positives. Nevertheless, the few positives present us with awesome opportunity to further the gospel established by Jesus to be socially transmitted as he reiterated through the parable of good Samaritan and also considering peters assertion in acts 2 about how the first believers lived. the key item is being privy to the potential dangers it present and being wise as serpent so as to enable us to deviate from the normal clicktianity and being fully committed to be a follower of Jesus Christ- true Christianity. In the current world and generation we more often than not attach our “worth” (social and financial) based on then fan base in terms of page views and likes. We have since formed an idealized life in our mind. We feel our shame is much greater hence need to cover it by few page views to remind us that we are still useful and needed. The church therefore should find a way to stay competitive and bring the two worlds -media and faith- together so as to deliver authentic message to young people who might otherwise give little consideration to the gospel in the wake of social media.