What does the Bible say about Facebook?

In response to Sam’s thought-provoking and insightful post on the nature of Christian ethics, I though I’d post some thoughts…

I formulated this into a rather nice (if I may say so myself) question while at the Tomlinsons’ house this week: what does the Bible say about Facebook?

Nothing, of course. Facebook appeared a couple of years ago, and social networking sites were nowhere to be seen in the first century, of course (let alone then second millennium BCE). Discerning appropriate responses could take several forms (though this is not, of course, definitive):

1. Try to make verses that clearly do not apply to Facebook apply to Facebook. So if, for example, the Sermon on the Mount made some reference to not writing on people’s walls, or poking people, these things can be seen to condemn social networking sites.

2. Sack off the Bible altogether, for it is out of date and of no use in formulating a contemporary ethic – its validity ended as soon as society changed away from its immediate context.

3. To adopt an Anglican-esque model of theology, with its characteristic tripod/milking stool of Scripture, tradition and reason/experience. This sees God as greater than the words of Scripture, the interpretative moves of tradition, and human reason/experience – but the faithful combination of these elements permits a dynamic and open understanding of what it means to discern theological truth.


It won’t surprise you to know that I veer towards the third suggestion. God is not the Bible, and new things like Facebook require careful consideration, rather than a naïve shooting from the hip with Bible verses that ‘apply’ to them. I feel wildly out of my depth past about the third paragraph here, and people write PhDs about this sort of thing and don’t come to answers.

My conclusion would be that the third option offers a difficult and challenging interpretative method, in which careful and faithful reflection – in the context of Spiritual guidance, as Sam mentioned – is done. My big problem is with the first option, which many Christians implicitly seem to adopt – the sooner we get over the fact that the Bible is not a moral answerbook with easy solutions to every moral dilemma, the better. It may, of course, be that Scripture’s moral pronouncements are still valid – but the fact that they are in the Bible does not guarantee this, and this conclusion should be made as a product of careful reflection, in which the possibility that they may no longer be valid is taken seriously.

To conclude with reference to Sam’s post about some contemporary moral issues, I think Facebook becomes a less loaded model for many contemporary ethical questions: the modern phenomenon of committed and mutual homosexual relationships, stem-cell research and IVF, terrorism, immigration and ethnic tension etc. Easy conclusions about these issues are often suggested, but real answers come from a discerning and searching dialogue between Scripture, tradition and reason/experience.