New Media Blog

By Verity A. Jones | Where did we go? It’s been three months since we posted on this blog, right? The last post was September 24. It closed out the seven-week series, “Social justice and social media.” While it was a brilliant and successful series (smile), we do seem to have fallen off the radar (nay, tablet) screen here lately.

By Janelle Tupper, guest blogger | In this series, we've been inspired by stories of social media as a force for social justice. From African-American expression on #BlackTwitter to the It Gets Better project for LGBT youth, from the Pink Mennos project to the March on Washington, to the ever-viral social justice Tweets from Pope Francis, social media is clearly at work in many movements and churches.

By Kathryn Reklis | As this series has highlighted, a commitment to “social justice” is shared by Christian denominations (and many others!) of almost every stripe these days, but Catholics have a special fondness for the phrase because its modern use was coined by a Jesuit priest, Luigi Taparelli, writing against the social ills caused by the industrial revolution.

By Lerone A. Martin | Fifty years after the March on Washington—perhaps the most praised gathering for social justice in US history—the New Media Project appropriately examines the relationship between social media and social justice: Can social media be reckoned and utilized, as Leo Mirani of The Guardian has suggested, as an “updated version of nailing your thesis to a church door”?

By Jim Rice | The beginnings were modest. “[L]ittle house-churches of earnest Christians began a spiritual emigration from Christendom. They were convinced that the world of nationalism and mindless technology which was emerging was hopelessly committed to war and violence. For Christians, perceiving the world’s rush toward self-destruction, the only answer was to restore a true church based on New Testament models.”