Facebook. Why is Facebook so accepted, so favored, so trendy to most everyone these days? The Internet World Stats calculated that there are 937,407,180 Facebook subscribers in the world today effective September 2012. So 937,407,180 out of roughly 7,500,000,000 of world population leaves us about 6,562,592,820 non-FB affiliates. So ball-parking it to a round figure brings us to approximately 6.6 billion inhabitants of planet earth unconnected and unsolicited with the social networking site. Puts it into perspective for me. Puts it into a better angle because it is now not true when someone asserts that everyone has Facebook in the 21st century. That Facebook is the new psychology and the new reality. It is not. Not even close. So why the brazen claims? Why the illusion that without an account, we would be disconnected from society and flounder in the face of humanity? It is because Facebook has succeeded where so many of us Christians have failed. Acceptance and Likes. Facebook is accepting to all. Beautiful, unsightly, white, black, Asian, sociable, serious, conscientious, murderers, psychopaths, broken people, happy people. All are accepted into Holy Zuckerdom. In Zuckerdom, everyone works hard at liking each other. Liking each others looks, liking what each other says, liking what each other does. Zuckerdom is a feel-good community, a happy stead, a gratifying dwelling. A hunky-dory synagogue.
Dare I propose that by any chance, Christendom can work out a way to espouse acceptance and affirmation? Romans 15:7 says, “Accept one another just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God”. 1 Peter 4:8, “Above all, keep loving each other earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins”. Dare I tout that we keep chastisement aside since clearly judging others is not a way to go?. Never has and never will. I wonder that if Jesus was alive today and decided to start a social networking site, how different would it look from Facebook? Well, for one, there would be no ‘unfriend’ button because once you are friends with Jesus, you never want to ‘unfriend’ Him. There would be no ‘acquaintance’ option because everyone is a friend of Jesus. There would not be a ‘block’ button because Jesus came to remove all obstruction. More importantly, all 7.5 billion people earth-wide would want to be connected because everyone would be eager to connect and are able to connect. The status update would read, “I am beside you, before you, within you, behind you, beneath you and above you“. Dare I put forth a challenge for us today to be that Jesus? Dare I press you to be that ‘Facebook’ for the rest of the unreached population? Can you be THE social networking base of the 21st century?
