COMMENTARY: The Gospel According to Twitter

(RNS) Transparency is everything now. Disconcerting for some, delightful for others. Learn to live in it. Better yet, try it. (http://twitter.com) (That paragraph, by the way, fits the 140-character length limit of a Tweet. What’s a “Tweet”? Well, read on.) As with most things technological, social media are about tools — Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Yammer, […]

(RNS) Transparency is everything now. Disconcerting for some, delightful for others. Learn to live in it. Better yet, try it. (http://twitter.com)

(That paragraph, by the way, fits the 140-character length limit of a Tweet. What’s a “Tweet”? Well, read on.)

As with most things technological, social media are about tools — Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Yammer, LinkedIn and others — but they are actually more than tools. It’s a mindset, an approach to living and working, made possible by the Internet’s omnipresence and easy accessibility.


It is possible, for example, for two friends to leave the office for lunch, beam their location, link up with other friends in the area, earn points for visiting, and write a review, all in seconds using social media. (http://foursquare.com/)

It is possible for a so-yesterday politician like Newt Gingrich to test today’s presidential waters by amassing 1.3 million followers on Twitter and sending 1,900 Tweets on his thoughts and accusations.

It is possible for school officials to warn students that an assault is under way. And for workplace colleagues to escape anonymity by relating their activities in a micro-blog like Yammer. (http://www.yammer.com/)

What you should notice about that list of possibilities is speed and transparency. There’s nothing new about friends meeting up, politicians seeking attention, schools warning students, or ambitious people carving out careers.

What’s new is speed: these initiatives and updates happen instantaneously, in real time, not through a traditional media news cycle or office memo distribution.

And also transparency: what you do gets noticed. The sale you just made, the excellent piece you wrote, the selfless hour you spent with a needy person, the loss you experienced — it all becomes visible.


You can promote a brand by social media — church leaders, pay attention — and you can protect that brand from rumor and misconception. Leaders can take charge of their own message and not be victimized by perceptions. Slackers have fewer hiding places. Bullies get called out.

In the tension between meritocracy and aristocracy, social media level the playing field. Tiresome and meaningless markers like where you went to college matter less than the contribution you actually made to a project and who knows about it.

Barack Obama cut through centuries of prejudice by running a transparent presidential campaign on Twitter. Gingrich and Sarah Palin are doing the same now.

Imagine a Vatican more attuned to the times: no trying to hide information about sexual abuse, no self-serving denials and blame-the-media bluster, no bristling when bad news goes viral. Imagine, instead, a church that accepts transparency, engages people, speaks candidly and turns a crisis into faith formation.

Imagine a pope using social media to reach hundreds of millions of believers directly, rather than through a balky institution.

Hard to imagine? Well, it’s what Jesus did. Jesus lived in the open. He didn’t have iPhone apps or massive databases, but he lived transparently, allowed people to get close to him, spoke in public places, and tore down the curtains of secrecy by which religious and political elites historically keep control.


Among the many ways Jesus threatened the powerful, none was so potent as his determination to live in the light, not in the shadows, and to respond to situations as they arose, not by delay or denial.

Church leaders: don’t get huffy about social media. Put them to work. Share information, engage people, go modern. http://techcrunch.com/.

(Yes, that last one is 138 characters, also suitable for Tweeting.)

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)

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