by Daniel Hann

Created on: August 25, 2008

Like most people in the world, I am a member of the social networking web site, Facebook. As most of you who are using Facebook would know, on your profile page you have the option of specifying your religious views. If you type in Christian', the site comes up with many different options for describing exactly which branch of Christianity you belong to mostly denominations. But the site also gives you the freedom to type in whatever you want. This freedom has led to some interesting responses.

I have many Christian friends on Facebook, and I find it a fascinating exercise to see exactly how they have described their religious views'. I think it is amazing how one's choice of words reflects one's distinctive attitude to the Christian faith. It also reveals something of one's personality. In this article I will set forth a sample of responses from among my Christian friends. I won't specify their names, so as to preserve their anonymity. Hopefully, if you are not currently on Facebook, it will get you thinking about how you would describe your religious views if given the opportunity.

For the record, on my profile page I have written Christian Protestant'. I chose this designation to differentiate myself from the Catholic branch of Christianity. Mine is among the more boring responses, perhaps reflecting my rather academic approach to faith. My main concern was to align myself with what I consider to be the more doctrinally sound, theologically correct, Reformation tradition. In fact around half of my Christian friends have taken the fairly bland option of simply answering Christian'. A few have gone a little further by specifying their particular denomination Baptist, Assemblies of God, and the like.

The next most common answer among my Christian friends has been to say that they follow Jesus', or some variation of that. This answer has plenty of biblical support. Jesus often gave his disciples the simple command: Follow Me' (eg: Matthew 9:9, John 1:43, 21:22). Those who have chosen this response perhaps want to distance themselves from denominational pigeon-holing, and strip Christian discipleship back to its simplest essence. Along similar lines, two other friends of mine have written Lovin' My Jesus' and I believe in Jesus' as their description of their religious views.

Finally, a few of my friends have put some extra thought, creativity and humour into their responses. One describes himself as Intolerant Christian'. No doubt this person wanted to emphasise the uniqueness and exclusivity of the Christian worldview. Three others gave these answers:

True Christianity ... uno the one that is selfless and giving'

Religion isn't my thing - but Jesus is King'

Christian - Servant of the Resurrected God-man'

Lastly, although I have been focusing on the religious views of my Christian friends, there is one response from a non-Christian friend of mine which has particularly caught my attention. This person wrote:

I want 2b good but sometimes just cant help it, so I just have 2 hope 1 day I will be forgiven :P'

Now there's an opportunity for evangelism!

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