Facebook ad opens a divide in American Christianity

Here is the ad:

It was placed this week by an American group calling themselves The Christian Left, who tell the world:

“We are The Christian Left. We’re all around you. We’re among the people. Take a look. We’re part of the Body of Christ. We’re Christians. We’re Liberal. We make no apologies. In fact Jesus’ ways are “Liberal.” That’s why He was killed. The Pharisees and the Sadducees were the conservatives of their time.”

Well, their ad got banned from Facebook because, as the automatic notification e-mail said, “This ad has been disapproved due to negative user feedback concerning the ad’s content.”

(More after the break)

On their rambling web site, on their blog, and on a Facebook Page, The Christian Left speak up for the social justice issues that they feel are essential to Christians: poverty, healthcare, human rights (including LBGTQ marriage equality).

They particularly target “Tea Party” mentality:

And this is probably what got them yanked. The difference between the Christian right and the Christian left in the United States, at this point, is organization. This tiny ad, funded by donations, which brought about 25 followers a day to The Christian Left’s Facebook Page enraged people enough to report it as objectionable. Or rather, enraged somebody enough to organize resistance.

The “mob rule” censorship of Facebook’s automatic reactions to complaints, however, could be the best thing that ever happened to this group. The topic is currently surging on Reddit, with over 750 comments so far. It could be the beginning of a more constructive conversation about the role of religion in American life.

Comments

It seems like the twilight zone when Christians I know start talking politically. Their faces change into angry scowls and their first comments are rarely about stopping abortion, but are more in line with saying things like “I’m so sick of giving free everything to these woman that just want to stay home and have babies. We need to stop all this free food stamps. They just use what money they have for cigarettes. They don’t realize the majority of people on food stamps are the working poor. They just can’t make enough. Not everyone is college or technically wired for well paying jobs. Does that mean they should starve because their I.Q. was not as blessed as ours? Also 75% of woman that get child support don’t stay on welfare yet most states have not continued to work at collecting from dead beat parents. There are hungry children and the GOP wants to cut the school lunch progr