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What Facebook posts, tweets might say about the empty tomb: Would today's media tools have made more people believe?Apr 04, 2010 (The Decatur Daily - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Peter's cell phone message: U won't believe it!!! Thomas' reply: Probably won't -- still sleepy...Whatsup? ... Pete: At the tomb with Mary M and John. Ran all the way ... Tom: So-o-o? WHAT?... Mary Magdalene's Facebook status: I've been to Jesus' tomb. Stone is rolled away ... Got Peter, John to come. I can't stop crying... Pete: I'm taking pic ... Sending on yr phone now. Am freaked OUT! ... Leaving tomb with John -- he keeps saying he believes ... Mary M update: I just now saw 2 angels inside empty tomb!!! Tom: John believes what? Got pic. What IS this? Mary M update: AM IN COMPLETE SHOCK!!!! JESUS APPEARED!!!! He called me by name, told me not to hold on to him -- I thought he was gardener at 1st ... GOT VIDEO! Am sending to all my Fbook friends!!!! Tom: Is this pic of an empty hole and some used cloth? R u crazy?...Going back to sleep b/c too early for pranking... Pete: Look at that pic, man! Jesus' body NOT in that tomb! Is it just gone ... or ...??!! Tom: DUH, somebody stole the body ... %*& #! Pete: I see on Fbook Mary M said she SAW JESUS ALIVE after I left!! Ck out Mary's video post ... Tom: OK, ckd out Mary's video ... Fake. Pete: Not sure fake. Mary here with us now. Beside herself!! Letting her talk ... Mary M update: They don't believe he is risen, except John ... Shutting themselves in the house... Tom: U and John and Mary M dreaming ... Pete: The same dream??? Mary M: I'm tweeting via Twitter, starting a blog, doing a podcast ... HELP ME SPREAD THE WORD!!! Pete: OMG -- JESUS HERE!!!! CAME THROUGH LOCKED DOOR!!! Showed his wounds. JOY!!! Tom: I'll believe when I put my hand in print of nails, in his side... U guys need a ck up with Dr. Luke... So might the Resurrection story have gone in the digital world. If Mary Magdalene, Peter, John and the rest had been able to put the word out by the Internet and cell phone with verbal and text messages, digital images and live Webcasts, the message of the empty tomb would have spread like a Hollywood rumor. Joe "IV" Marsh, pastor of Epic Church, said Mary Magdalene surely would have sent the message "Jesus is risen!" and a photo from her phone. Maybe 1,000 people would have heard instantaneously, he said. "The message of Jesus would have traveled much, much faster," Marsh said. The Resurrection message would have gone out more efficiently, agreed the Rev. David Rollins, pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church. The Roman government that conducted Jesus' execution might have been terrified, he said. But both pastors said skeptics would still abound, like the Apostle Thomas, who famously said he would only believe if he could touch Jesus' wounds. "Thomas had to have the physical evidence," Rollins said. Marsh said some people would think photos of the Resurrected Jesus doctored and videos phony. When technology is able to record and send images, it also is able to fake them, he said. "I don't think it would change the doubting," he said. So, even though technology would spread the news far and wide, the level of belief might not be greater, the pastors said. More skeptics now? Religion and ethics instructor D. Jonathan Watts of Snead State Community College in Boaz said if Jesus were in the world today, preaching, healing and performing miracles, most people would be skeptical. "That comes from a place in history where we can create anything we imagine, even come back from the dead," said Watts, author of "Gospeltelling to a Digital Culture." He said if cameras blanketed Jesus' tomb, broadcasting images of an open door and an empty grave, many would say, 'It's a trick. All we need to do is figure out how they did it.' " If the Resurrection took place now with its use and impact of media tools, Watts said, "there would be more skepticism and less acceptance than ... 2,000 years ago." The perfect timing of God put Jesus in a naive culture, he said. "Sure there were skeptics at that place and time. But time and the holy boldness of the believers provided the litmus test for the truth," he said. Does using social networking tools and other new media make the message seem frivolous? Watts said Jesus was a masterful communicator who used the most powerful tool of his day, "the verbal brush." What better way to bear witness as Jesus commanded than to use tools of each generation?, Watts said. But he said there is always danger of someone distorting or recasting the message for unholy reasons. "Most understand that we cannot believe all we read as truth and fact," said Watts, an ordained United Methodist minister. Marsh said Epic Church uses social networking and communication technology. The only negative is that they depersonalize the message, he said. "If someone comes to you, face to face, looks you in the eye, there is something about that that technology can never replace, no matter how much you have," he said. "God wants a personal relationship with you, not e-mail, not Twitter." To see more of The Decatur Daily, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.decaturdaily.com Copyright (c) 2010, The Decatur Daily, Ala. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |