Jesus on Twitter

One of my favorite birthday cards is only slightly disrespectful, maybe sacrilegious, but nonetheless funny.

The top of the card reads “Jesus on Twitter.” It’s a crude drawing of Jesus holding a mobile device while walking along a river with a sheep at his feet. Jesus is looking down at his phone with a thought-bubble that reads “12 followers so far. Sweet!”

Do a quick Google search of “Jesus on Twitter” and you’ll find a picture of the greeting card. The Earth-conscious greeting card makers at Papyrus-Recycled Greetings created it. You’ll also find lots of Twitter accounts for Jesus.

All jokes aside, religion on social media is a serious matter for some and an opportunity for a laugh for others.

A search of the terms “God” or “Jesus” on social media reveal several accounts, some with important messages, some created for comedy and some mocking Christianity.

Of course, the best are those that deliver a message in a witty and insightful manner.

For example, the Twitter account for @Jesus is funny without being offensive (note: if you follow @God on Twitter, and you might not like what you see).

@Jesus once tweeted “What is your cat worth? [Favorite] for 1 billion dollars, [Retweet] if priceless, Reply if you want me to take it.” Even cat lovers would have to chuckle at that one (and they’re probably going on Twitter right now to retweet it).

Considering the pope’s recent visit to the U.S. and Cuba, and the flurry of activity on social media, it was interesting to revisit some of his recent tweets as well as the reactions of his “followers.”

The Pope has more than 7 million followers on Twitter. That’s only a fraction of the 1.2 billion worldwide members of the Catholic Church. The relatively small number of Twitter followers might account for his limited activity on social media.

In the lead up to his trip to the U.S., the pope sent just two tweets, including a request for prayers. In his second tweet, he asked followers to pray for Cuba.

These two tweets alone garnered more than 60,000 favorites and retweets. Some of the retweets and replies were supportive. Other retweets were the nasty, spiteful, hateful sort we’ve come to expect from Twitter.

You can bet the pope probably doesn’t read the replies to his tweets, and I couldn’t find evidence to suggest he engages his Twitter followers.

But here’s the interesting part: Some of the tweets and retweets actually spurred meaningful, responsible debate about the place of religion in modern society.

Some of the pope’s Twitter followers are clearly not the pope’s real-life followers. Still, a few of them opened the door to a kind of conscious-raising dialogue that was (almost always) on point.

These debates show us that we can still go to Twitter, Facebook and other platforms to connect to and engage with others in meaningful discussions. And we can have these discussions with people all over the world in just a matter of a few keystrokes and clicks.

Dr. Adam Earnheardt is chairman of the department of communication at Youngstown State University. Follow him on Twitter at @adamearn.