Manipulative Church

One of the most annoying nuisances since people have been forgetting to turn their blinkers off has been around since the internet really caught on. Its latest incarnation seems to be in the form of Facebook groups, although it used to really dominate the e-mail forwarding scene. A typical example would be one that says, “If you have had God answer a prayer press like.” The conceit is that if you are a good Christian who believes in prayer, you will press the like button. The problem is that it is nothing more than tired old manipulative religion.

The first reason that this is so annoying is that it is a blatant attempt to make people do stuff—it is a power play. “If you are a REAL Christian, you’ll do what I tell you to do.” “What? You didn’t forward that e-mail with the God-story on it? You must not really believe what you say you do.” At least in the old days, religious power seekers made people do stuff like send them money or do their work for them. Now it seems they just want people to waste time.

The second reason this is really a worthy pet peeve is that so many religious sheep are doing what they do best—mindlessly following. Why do so many people try to prove their faith by doing stupid stuff like forwarding e-mails or liking Facebook groups when they could be demonstrating their faith by doing what Jesus asked them to do—like telling other people what the Gospel is all about? In spite of what you may have been told, it does not take any courage to be obnoxious on the interweb. Try having real conversations with real people about real Christianity.

Now on to the problem of witty-Christian-catch-phrases-printed-on-t-shirts—or maybe manipulative worship services…