When 'encountering Jesus' Fr. James Martin said that new, unconventional ways of doing so, such as social media, should not be frowned upon.
The best-selling author and editor-at-large for America Media celebrated The Lay Centre's 30th anniversary in Rome with a conference on 'Encountering the Real Jesus: Understanding the Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith.'
FR. JAMES MARTIN,
SJ Jesuit priest, author and editor
'We should not be afraid to use any social media at our disposal to reach people, you know, speaking to them in a language that they can understand, a digital language in a sense. There's nothing wrong with that.'
In fact, he said even Jesus spoke in a language the people could understand: parables. Going a step further, each of the Beatitudes mentioned in the Bible are under 140 characters, the limit set for posts on Twitter, which many find restricting when attempting to relay important thoughts.
FR. JAMES MARTIN,
SJ Jesuit priest, author and editor
'My joke is 'if Jesus can talk about the birds of the air, then we can tweet.' Nothing should be beneath us to communicate the word of God. That to me is the digital Christ, that we use all these forms to help people, but we don't stop there. We can't let it become a substitute for an encounter with someone, because as Jesus does, He encountered people.'
He says since social media and cell phones are where the youth seem to reside, it could be beneficial to grab their attention from the place where they already spend so much time and perhaps that will be the gateway to a personal relationship and knowledge of Christ.
