From these all-Christian platforms people can do what they did on Twitter and Facebook (tweet Bible verses, express dismay over political affronts to morality, and proclaim excitement for date night with their hot wives), but here their audience presents no opposing viewpoints which could rankle them and raise their blood pressure.
Quite how making a lower-quality version and calling it Christian brings glory to God is not clear, but evangelical interpretations of "worldly" things are rampant and time-tested. It isn't biblical, but it's how Christian culture tends to operate.
44 comments:
www.godwitter.com doesn't seem to work. I wonder if, under the strain of hits your blog has sent it, they chose to pull it from the web...and just use Twitter.
oh, but christianchirp.com works just fine. And one of the first posts I saw on there used the acronym: WTF, that's priceless.
I think instead of joining a group like godtwitter or christianchirp, we can just just use FB and/or Twitter and bring christianity there. Witness there or just have a conversation with other believers. Think outside of the box and share with others.
Is there a point to these things? I mean, are they filtered, moderated, whatever?
Love the ango-Jesus with the blue chirp bird, btw.
Godtwitter did a crash and burn when massively hit with trolls, so I think they pulled it. Gospelr has morphed into something totally different rather than a twitter clone.
As far as why go separate... well, sometimes folks need a time away amongst birds of a feather so to speak. Its completely reasonable, and does have some scriptural backing. Ie, when Jesus and the disciples would pull away from the crowds for short periods of time.
The danger of course, is some may be tempted to totally withdraw, to separate themselves. Thats not cool at all.
It's not fair to judge just yet--the founder of Christian Chirp is trying to keep up with all the foul language deletions and getting blasted for it.... It's an outlet I'm enjoying very much - and it also updates your Twitter automatically if you want, so it's like hitting 2 birds w/1 stone (though I dislike that expression--being an animal lover and all ;)
PellynC~
godwitter was pulled following a raid from Ebaums world, exactly like what going to happen to ChristianChirp given time
This is kind of a two-fer
Essentially we now have a nice, safe, Christian® brand twitter to interact with,...other christians. And no one sees this as shameless re-branding, or in any way a little inbred?
Opportunity to share the gospel with those not already familiar: ZERO
Potential to feel good about using GodBrand twitter: 100%
i liked this link that was posted by JamesLParis on christian chirp. he brushed it off as humor, which it is. funny and worthwhile read though!
http://www.esarcasm.com/7173/christian-twitter/
One can only wish that Christians would create more of their own, God-friendly versions of things and keep to themselves.
What we don't need is another FB group called "1,000,000 people who believe in Jeebus."
Can I ask something totally absurd? When did it become 'cool' as a Christian to be cynical and negative? Did I miss that part of Jesus Christ's ministry...?
It's definitely not cool to be cynical. But it's wise to examine why we do what we do, rather than going along with what a group of people does. Group-think without close examination can be harmful, sometimes extremely harmful. I would hope everyone who comes here would ask themselves the hard questions.
Also Jesus had some pretty fiery things to say about the religiocultural doorkeepers of his day.
Once I get past feeling pissed off and smug about each new trend (I groaned aloud over Godwitter and gospelr...I mean, linguistically the names aren't even clever), I find myself feeling frustrated and sad about this increasing self-isolationism among Christians. Whatever our approach to the faith, be it exuberant, cheesy, overeager, bitter, impassioned, angry, sarcastic, invasive, laissez-faire...shouldn't we, regardless, be genuine, and visible?
What are Christians so afraid of? People thinking we’re weird? We are weird. I mean, I believe that a guy who really lived and died isn't dead anymore (but came back to life without being a zombie) and who physically ascended into heaven and whose love saves the world. I even talk to this guy on a whimsical basis. Yeah…it’s weird. I say we grin and own it. My closest friends are "outsiders" to Christian culture, or to Christianity altogether, and they love me more for being open about my faith and my weirdness and my doubt and my being stumped at some of their questions and my occasional total cornballery.
I don't see the point in making the weird any weirder by borrowing from "secular" culture and making it tame. ("He's not a tame lion...")
Wos - stephy *and* Sarah, on the money!!! Great comments, both of you.
I have a deep aversion to Twitter, which has just been super-compounded by these "Christian" imitators. I mean, why???!! (as in, why do something so apparently pointless?)
Even though we definitely are weird, like Sarah just said. ;-)
"..evangelical interpretations of "worldly" things are rampant and time-tested. It isn't biblical, but it's how Christian culture tends to operate."
Aaaaargh, so true! Like those dumb bracelets that are knockoffs of the Livestrong bracelets...it's like Christian culture thinks that the way to be relevant is to replicate secular culture, instead of transcending it by living out Christ's love.
Stephy - Did you receive my last comment about your Group-think post? Wondering if I timed out (it didn't say as much) or if you just wanted the last word. Interesting how the current trend in the Christian sub-culture is to attack other Christians for their efforts...what's next, passing a bill to stone missionaries in the USA too now? As scripture says, in the last days the natural brotherly love will grow cold...just as we have witnessed here. I feel the love oozing from your readers.... Nice.
I think the attacking goes both ways, hon, along with the lovelessness. Sadly, a lot of us here grew up with an enormous lack of love that came from the culture whose validity we're now questioning, and we're trying to figure out what the love of God really means, since we didn't find it in the culture of the "other Christians" of whom you speak.
There's more than one way to love, though, you know? And it doesn't always look tidy or organized, and sometimes it looks downright furious and outraged (but Jesus, and then James and John and Peter and Paul were also furious and outraged betimes at the failures of communities or systems to convey the love of God). But that doesn't mean it isn't love; it's just a different expression.
I can't take responsibility for my readers, but did you think that when Jesus got mad and threw stuff around in the temple that he was attacking Christians for their efforts?
1. I want to hang out with Sarah and I normally can't stand literalists.
2. You're making this up, Stephy. Christian Culture wouldn't reduce themselves to this level of "cheesyness", would they?.....
ooh - I want to hang out with Stephy, Sarah and Josh!
Sounds like a plan, peeps. ;-)
Spinning said...
"ooh - I want to hang out with Stephy, Sarah and Josh!"
Sounds like an awkward date but I'm sure we can somehow solve all the world's problems.
Anonymous said..
"As scripture says, in the last days the natural brotherly love will grow cold"
Hate to tell you, but your comment was the only one on this board that resembled a "cold" one. An old prof of mine used to joke that the current Christians might not want Jesus to come back because they might be suprised how many of them he leaves behind.
@ Josh: Oh probably, but it'd work just fine a-)s a coffee klatsch, no? ;
Hang out? Awesome. I'm in. (Thanks, Josh. I'm not your typical literalist, I think. And thanks, Spinning...bring on the coalition.)
Also, I recently told a friend that if I were Jesus I'd be putting off my wedding for awhile yet too...
Sarah, I can tell you're not the typical literalist hence why I would hang out :P In all fairness, since I'm smack dab in the middle of the country (Missouri) I think it's only fair that you all have to come to me.
I'll use HolyGhostwitter to set up a meeting time. That's right, my twitter has all the power of God with all the coolness of Jesus. Best of both worlds. It's the trinity of twitter
Sweet. If my computer breaks down I'll RSVP with a dove.
I want to hang out with Stephy!
I'm sure this happens in most comments, but the topic is going away from the post. (maybe you need an open thread for people to post on?)
One thing people don't realize about Christian Chirp is how much of a scam James L Paris is. You look on twitter (and twitter has its benefits like quick information) and you find links like this:
http://www.maine.gov/pfr/securities/judicial_actions/Paris_Complaint.htm
Also, you go to his site the financial one i don't want to put a link to, and it is ridiculous. Christians don't even realize they are being dupped by this guy. Funny thing is, you join Christian Chirp and post anything about it, and in as little as 10 seconds (that was the quickest) your account has been deleted.
Just because it has God's name, doesn't mean the software or the guy behind it isn't trying to scam people. I really want Ebaums World to be released on it just to help out the Christians who are signing up, and who knows what this guy is doing with their contact info.
ALSO, he has no terms of service. therefore he has no reason to delete anyone.
One last thing, he bought the software to make this for 300 dollars. imagine what he is making on his investments.
http://www.revou.com/
Thank you, Stephy, for your site.
Anonymous, I don't see your comment about Stephy's group think post. She doesn't delete comments, so there must've been a mishap. What were your thoughts on it?
DD, I've often thought that the best way to get rich is to come up with something that the clamoring Christian horde just must have. The culture that Stephy addresses seems to have the need to cover themselves with the Christian label, and the $$s to do it. The only reason I haven't done it, aside from a frightening lack of creativity or marketing skills, is the thought that it makes me no more than another moneychanger.
It's worse than we thought. ChristianChirp founder James L. Paris is a convicted securities fraud scammer who is perpetuating a persecution myth to dupe Christians to sign up for ChristianClick and get exposed to his Internet marketing schemes.
Being a christian doesn't excuse you from thinking.
Scripturally we're not to rely solely on our own understanding, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take a stab at it ourselves for a start.
PellynC and "anonymous":
A branded, isolationist-minded Christian subculture, as opposed to a mere community of believers, is a hindrance to - really, a bulwark against - the Christians' core goal of evangelism.
Look: when the Apostle Paul reaches crowds with his message, he generally leaves the jeremiads at home. The apostles are certainly insistent and perhaps didactic (the character of Jesus had license to be, as he is written), but they also knew their milieu and actually strived to live within the existing world around them. In short, they weren’t pushing a Jonestown-style spa retreat. You can quote the Old Testament prophetic chestnuts of Jonah and Nahum and Zephaniah all you want, but the post-Christ, distinctly Pauline bedside manner took witnessing to (blame Ryrie for this one) another dispensational plateau.
The United States’ "Christian subculture" is an ersatz, escapist fantasy, and it is telling that its self-incarcerated defenders cannot see the bars in front of their own faces. Most of the commenters on this blog are sincere believers and play things relatively by the book, but I don't have to be as nice, since I'm agnostic: cliquish, esoteric Christians are syndromic of the disease afflicting the American Protestant Church, namely, that it has lost its moorings and is fading into obscurity, if not obsolescence. At the end of the day, these folks are best off living in their bubbles and allowing the rest of us, sacred and secular, to continue to examine the real world around us.
You know, I've been thinking recently that Christian culture can't sustain itself for too much longer, given that few people want to join from the outside, birth control has generally slowed down cultural perpetuation through reproduction and the few children that do come from Christian culture tend to leave it as soon as possible.
And while part of me felt hideously disloyal, the greater part of me thought what a Good Thing that could be, the fading of this slowly collapsing culture into peaceful obscurity -- then maybe the Thing Itself, the real thing, could finally start to come to light.
Maybe there's hope for things to turn around in a different way, but I'm kind of doubtful. It seems to be sort of socioevolutionarily (if that's a word) inevitable, and why not? Sometimes when something doesn't work anymore, it has to be scrapped altogether and the whole project started over. (And if salvation is a process, as a lot of the New Testament suggests, and not an instant experience, then there's nothing to lose in the starting over.)
Well spoken, Will. (And with such gorgeous vocabulary.)
(My word verification word is "colic." Priceless....which I say self-ironically.)
I just don't get...twitter. Hearing what other people are up to every moment of every day sounds like some kind of sick nightmare.
Trev, I agree with you. It's horribly narcissistic. Especially all the tweets from guys about their "hot wives."
I didn't get twitter either until my favorite band started tweeting and suddenly I was massively interested in every little thing they cared to share they were doing. But it's only interesting if there are people you know and love in real life and who are witty and interesting somehow. The worst tweets (this goes for facebook statues too) are the kinds that are like "Cooking some gnocchi for dinner. Yum!" and "I can't believe Jadon took such a long nap today!!!!!!", etc.
These people on twitter are really interesting (to me) and/or they crack me up each and every time -
http://twitter.com/robcorddry
http://twitter.com/DougCoupland
http://twitter.com/SarahKSilverman
http://twitter.com/robhuebel
http://twitter.com/DeaconFred
http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays
(That last one is my very favorite)
Where I come from in England to witter is to talk rubbish or to go on and on about things in a mindless way!!!
needless to say I mean the people that would post on Godwitter...rather than the Almighty :-)
Shitmydadsays looks like ripped-off updated club Henny Youngman.
I'm surprised you even deigned to look at it.
I just saw that shitmydadsays got a sitcom... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ia4b706c7ade5c201ef51c5f91bc9ff77
How come God doesn't twitter? - wish He did.
Stephy there is no such thing as low quality Christian crap - like I think Jesus the mini series was cutting edge.
Steph - You ARE a hot wife. Deal with it.
Jeremiah
Read thru most of the posts and it suddenly dawned on me that all of you have missed the point for why these twitter alternatives were created. They did it for peace of mind, TO GET AWAY FROM PEOPLE LIKE YOU!
And the whole diatribe about Christians being too segregated from the culture... are you kidding! They ARE the predominate culture, married at the hip to everything this narcissistic, age-denying, entertainment and sports worshipping culture of death has to offer!
Oooo, "culture of death," I haven't heard that one dragged out in awhile.
It strikes me as amusingly narcissistic that there seems to be this underlying idea among certain circles that today's "secular" culture is the worst culture ever to have existed, and the righteous people should avoid it at all costs. Greco-Roman culture, into which Christianity was born, was in many ways much, much worse, yet Paul's admonitions to the churches tended to be as simple as "don't sleep with prostitutes or your stepmother" and "avoid worshiping in pagan temples."
I fail to see how that morphed into total avoidance of anything not "Christian" (which, as Stephy regularly points out, usually has little to nothing to do with Christ or his clearly proclaimed purpose), in a culture that, while possessing its share of awfulness, still on the whole has an incredible desire for something More than what it's handed. In the midst of all the rushing around trying to grab the biggest piece of the pie (which is based in fear of the unknown), there is a growing yearning for beauty, truth, love and purpose, and a lot of Christians are missing out on it by denouncing everything about this culture and hiding under their beds with their ears plugged and their fingers glued firmly to the "alternative" culture they have generated for themselves out of a fear of the known. Which strikes me as even more cowardly than what most "non-Christians" (seriously, what a stupid term) do.
Further, Greco-Roman culture didn't descend into its degeneracy because Christians stopped caring or participating in any way. In fact, Christianity became the driving force that changed that culture altogether. When did we get special dispensation to abandon the entire world and set up a clean well-lighted room for ourselves at the expense of others?
The thing about the kingdom of God being yeast, salt and light is that that yeast, salt and light are supposed to be love. When they're self-righteousness, they aren't yeast, salt or light, and they have no effect, which then causes a lot of the people wielding that self-righteousness to justify throwing up their hands and and retreating into their church bubbles to socialize solely with themselves and congratulate themselves on how much better they are than their "lost" neighbors.
Blech. I'd rather associate with the upfront honesty I have more often experienced outside that kind of church, and get to know people whose values are, on the outside, different from mine, only to find that God's love exists in the most humblingly surprising of places.
Also...so maybe facelifts, the Oscars and the SuperBowl aren't directly linked to Jesus, but really, are they bad? The obsession with physical beauty is sad, but it points to a fear that love can certainly assuage...if we're even available to distribute that love. Kind of hard to be the yeast that's worked through the whole batch of dough if we're hiding all sealed up in plastic in the freezer.
3CC - If Christians are searching for peace of mind from the decidedly light ripostes this site offers, they are doing more than simply retreating from core principles like outreach and community - they're looking for a colder, more remote Fortress Of Solitude. Additionally, Christians utilizing their own alternatives to popular folkways are still, you know, essentially utilizing those selfsame folkways. As I noted merely days ago, 3CC, most of the posters here are Believers. If there cannot be internal dialogue between followers of Christ, replete with pithy questions, then the church is underlining the inadequacy of their personal convictions. The "sealed up in plastic in the freezer" metaphor is apt. 3CC: what is your prognosis? Something other than "in the world, but not of the world?"
Wow, 3CCC, I've checked out your website and all I can see is EXclusivity; not the inclusiveness that is the hallmark of Christ's message. No wonder you find this site threatening.
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