Thursday 22 September 2011

#Follow me

Came across this picture on Facebook.
    Twitter disciple


    Here’s a few of the questions it raised for me:
    • How has social media impacted on our understanding of language in general and religious language in particular?
    • What image of Jesus is being presented here?
    • How do we communicate the Christian faith in a digital age?
    • Why do I detest text speak so much IMHO?

    h/t Arvind Munshi & the BigBIble project.
    at

    7 comments:

    1. Doug22 September 2011 at 10:43

      I can't get past the awful picture to your questions! Which may say something about #2 but doesn't help answer the others.

      ReplyDelete
    2. Peter Kirk22 September 2011 at 13:56

      The Jesus is awful, isn't he? At least there is no doubt who he is meant to be. But that was not the point of my Facebook post and tweet of this.

      ReplyDelete
    3. Anonymous23 September 2011 at 05:04

      Hi, I am from Australia.

      The radical Spiritual Teaching and Calling of Jesus reduced to a Hallmark card platitude. But why are you surprised?

      Of course the dominant form of "social media", or socializing propaganda in the Christian "world" was always the Bible. And it still is in many parts of the world.

      And the "understanding" of Jesus and of the Bible too, was always very much a product of the cultural milieu of any particular time and place.

      That having being said please check out this reference.

      www.beezone.com/up/propheticcriticismreligion.html

      ReplyDelete
    4. Anonymous23 September 2011 at 10:43

      Hmm - "literally" following Jesus? I'm not sure what that would involve. Maybe the point is that the New Testament and twitter are both using the metaphor of following, to mean in the one case "be aware at every moment of a new decision that can be made that fits with Jesus's purposes for your neighbourhood and then take that decision in trust" and in the other... well something a little less than this. But at least the "every moment" part is a parallel!
      Andy Griffiths

      ReplyDelete
    5. Peter Kirk23 September 2011 at 12:43

      Andy, surely Jesus originally meant "follow" literally: his disciples were to go where he went, often literally in his footsteps. Today things are not quite so literal, but "follow" still implies that we should go where he directs us.

      But bear in mind that this was surely intended as satire rather than as a real evangelistic poster. The "LOL" shows that. One really shouldn't analyse a joke.

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    6. Anonymous23 September 2011 at 21:45

      fair enough!
      andy

      ReplyDelete
    7. stripes23 September 2011 at 22:43

      It's a joke? Oy. The despair posters are so much better.

      ReplyDelete