Sort of related to my ‘ignore-the-outrage’ post, a good number of my dear Christian Facebook friends keep sharing a very 1950s picture of a nativity scene…
It’s accompanied by the claim that Facebook is banning Christians from sharing pictures like this and so we should all protest by sharing the image.
Firstly, please pause to note the irony that you read the information and saw the picture via the medium which is supposed to have banned it!
But secondly, I wonder that more Christians don’t check their outrage longer in order to fact-check the reliability of the info.
As it happens this meme has been circulating the internet since 2012 – i.e. for at least two Christmases prior to this one! A quick check of the Snopes or Hoax Slayer websites would have de-bunked it.
Given Facebook permits all sorts of rot from both extreme and silly viewpoints, is this allegation of censorship of Christians really plausible? Or does it just make us seems unduly sensitive and gullible?
Proverbs 23:23 says:
Buy the truth and do not sell it; get wisdom, discipline and understanding.
Lets save our energies for genuine and serious cases of censorship and persecution. Once again the advice to ignore it seems worth considering.
[P.S. To all my dear friends I have already ‘chipped’ for passing this meme on, I am not mad at you. I’m not trying to embarrass you personally. The fact so many committed and thoughtful Christians have passed it on shows that it’s an easy mis-step to make in the social media space. (I’ve made a few of my own!) I’d just like to help us avoid similar mistakes more often in the future.]
