I have always believed that one of the really important responsibilities a writer has is to ask interesting questions. Questions make us think about life in new ways, and once we do, our minds cannot snap back to what they were before. So here is my question… What would Jesus think of the Social Web? How would he use it if he had come to the world now instead of 2009 years ago? Of course this question is really just a metaphor for what is good, and evil about the concept of social media. I want to look at the social media through Jesus’ eyes because God certainly has allowed us to have the Internet so he must have known what it would be become and how it would be used. Jesus was flesh and blood so it is a bit more interesting to speculate what he would think.

Would Jesus use LinkedIn? Most certainly. He would quickly find out that as he spoke to people, they would be intrigued with him and would send a connection request after a sermon. Jesus would not want to reject a stranger so he would accept everyone that wanted to Link with him. He would then turn right around and use this list of people to send information to – probably in the form of questions and parables. He would not care how large his connection base got from an ego standpoint, but would relish the ability to “talk” to many people at once – with the click of a button. Well, at least 50 at once because that is all LinkedIn let’s you email at one time. Jesus would be annoyed with this pointless restriction. He would never use the capability to “find” other people because people are supposed to find him.

Would Jesus have a Facebook account? No question – yes. He would need to have one place to upload stories, pictures, videos, and documents that he would like to share with followers. And no, he would not need a MySpace account because you only need one or the other and he would go where the most followers are, and where he could create an application that would run inside the platform. What kind of app would he have built? Probably a widget that delivered just the right holy inspiration at the moment that people needed it. He could do this by parsing the text in blogs, tweets, and messages his friends would post, and then matching their concerns to Biblical insights. Much like wefeelfine.org. By the way, his Facebook picture would be of him holding the hand of a child, and he would not care that people thought it overdone.

Would Jesus be on Twitter? If he could have only one application to use in social media, it would be Twitter. Twitter is built to allow one to accrue followers, and then allows concise messages back to those followers. He could also follow everyone he came in contact with so that he could see his or her concerns and directly respond. Jesus taught by speaking in couplets and questions and he could easily do that in 140 characters. He would over time become the number one most popular on Twitter, and would do so without ever once mentioning what he had for lunch, how he is feeling, or how frustrated he is with dropped calls.

Would Jesus care about his online reputation? No, not at all. He did not care about his reputation 2000 years ago, and would not care now. He would be saddened by the animosity of the replies to his postings. He would be shocked at the parodies on youtube of his messages. He would shudder at how people would twist his words after copying them from his musings. In the end, he would not care what people thought of him – other than to be graceful towards them.

Would Jesus have a blog? He would have a blog because not every concept he would want to get across can be done in 140 characters. There are some things that take 500 to 1000 words. These include longer stories, and deep concepts like forgiveness, grace, and trust. His blog would probably be published monthly however because weekly would be too often and would dilute the importance of the message. The hardest part of blogging for Jesus would be having to peruse the responses he would get from the people that have nothing better to do with their time than to flame the author with pointless attacks that lack any sense of intelligent debate. He would one day have many offers from companies that would want to buy his blog, or advertise in it. Only because someone else would write about his Comscore results and note that he had a following of millions. In a twist that would surprise people, he would accept the offer from Google to deliver targeted ads as a way to generate revenue that he would then use to fund missions. And he would kindly remind Google of their commitment to “do no evil”

Would Jesus have his own Website and buy Adwords? Only after the disciples agreed to manage it and keep it updated. Jesus would refer to it as a mission and would agree to record some video for the site, but after that, would let the disciples manage it. The site would become a constant source of learning experiences for the disciples as Jesus struggled with them to make sure that all decisions on functionality and ecommerce were made with a sense of holiness. They would outbid every other site on a collection of keywords and phrases like, “the meaning of life, God, evil, love, suicide, redemption, forgiveness, faith, and Bible.” Of course, the site would be defaced every now and again by Russian and North Korean hackers.

Would Jesus be OK with building online communities instead of face to face communities? For some reason, there are many people that turn their nose up at a community that is formed of like minded people online. These folks believe that if you have not shaken hands with a person and looked them in the eyes, then the relationship you build is somehow second rate. As if being in the physical presence of a person somehow builds a bond that is better than what can be built online. I believe the relationships are just in two different categories and not better or worse than the other. People can build intellectual bonds online that surpass that exchange in person for some. This comes from sharing ideas, concepts and beliefs. With that said, I think Jesus would be fine with followers building eCommunities around his teachings. The word “church” meant something very different to Jesus than it does to modern man. Two thousand years ago, it simply meant those that were believers. It did not mean a building, a denomination, or religion in general, as we use it today. As long as the communication exchange was done in truth, love, grace, and forgiveness, he would be fine the medium.

So what would Jesus do with social media? The same thing he did back then. Just faster this time.

Scott Klososky
scott@klososky.com