One-in-Five Americans Share Their Faith Online

About the same percentage that tune in to religious talk radio, watch religious TV programs or listen to Christian rock music also share their faith online during a typical week, according to a new Pew Research Poll. These messages reach about half of all Americans. Read more here.

Godinterest

A new Christian social network is looking to compete with photo-shairing platform Pinterest. Godinterest is intended to be a "safe family friendly Christian alternative... organizing ideas including Church events, travel planning, inspirational quotes, home decorating ideas, meal planning and advice, wedding or event planning, activities for children.." You can check the bookmarking site for yourself here.

Underwood tweets Bible verse in response to critics

In response to criticism over her performance in Sound of Music Live!, Carrie Underwood tweeted, "Plain and simple: Mean people need Jesus. They will be in my prayers tonight...1 Peter 2:1-25." Read more here.

Atheist takes over Preacher's Twitter Account

An evangelist has had his official Twitter account taken over by an unknown atheist, according to the Christian Post. The news site says the interloper has given Comfort an ultimatum: "Stop "denigrating" nonbelievers or you won't get your Twitter account back." Read more here.

Text and tweet during services

A report on social media use during services at one Arizona church below.

Social Media Use

Only 6% of Americans say they're part of a spiritual group on Facebook - and only 5% say they follow a spiritual leader on Twitter. That's according to a survey released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute. Nevertheless, several Evangelical leaders are using social media extensively. Here's the number of Twitter follows of three of them:

1. Joel Osteen - 834,419 followers
2. Rick Warren - 684,144 followers
3. Mark Driscoll - 262,935 followers


Half of the respondents said they don’t post their religious affiliations on Facebook.

Beer vs Church

People Tweet about church more than beer, according to a new study. Floatingsheep.org says the numbers are different for different regions of the country. Tweets about church popped up most in the Southeast. Tweets about beer were more common in the Northeast. The survey reviewed some 10 million tweets during a week in June. Church got more than 17 thousand tweets while beer was mentioned some 14 thousand times. People living in San Francisco talked about beer the most, while Dallas was the most focused on church.

Miley: Forget Jesus

Below is a short video report on a controversial Tweet by singer Miley Cyrus.

Twitter Censoring Messages

Twitter Inc., the microblogging service, gave itself extra flexibility to censor information in parts of the world that impose restrictions on self-expression. Effective yesterday, Twitter added the ability to censor tweets on a country-by-country basis, rather than globally, the San Francisco-based company said in a blog post.
 

The shift would let Twitter comply with strictures in one country without having to pull offending tweets from its entire audience. Previously, Twitter banned offensive content on a global basis, rather than for a specific nation. Still, the decision drew criticism from some users because the service has been used as an agent of social change around the world, including the Middle East.

Some Twitter users are calling for a boycott of the service tomorrow in protest of the decision. They’re using “#TwitterBlackout” as a hash tag -- a label that lets people easily find tweets on the same topic.

Reporters Without Borders, an organization that seeks to defend freedom of information, also said it was disturbed by Twitter’s decision.

Read more here

Maher Goes After Tebow... Again

HBO's Bill Maher is getting backlack from his tweet over the weekend criticizing Denver Bronco's quarterback Tim Tebow. After Tebow threw four interceptions during his team's lose to Buffalo, the comedian sent this message to his 872,000 Twitter followers:

"Wow, Jesus just [screwed] #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere ... Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler "Hey, Buffalo’s killing them."

Tebow did not respond but his fans are speaking out. Some are calling for viewers to cancel their HBO subscriptions in protest.

How Luther went viral

Five centuries before Facebook and the Arab spring, social media helped bring about the Reformation. Read the story at The Economist.

Tweet The Bible

A group led by web developer Anthony J. Thompson has started a plan to post one verse of the Bible every day on Twitter. With over 31,000 verses in the Bible, the project will take 86-years to complete. It's called #TweetTheBible. The project was launched at 11:11am November 11th making it 11/11/11 11:11. You can follow their progress @tweetthebible86 or on Facebook at TweetTheBible.

CS Lewis on Twitter

C.S. Lewis has joined the social media revolution. HarperCollins has created the official Twitter account for the Christian apologist. It will feature quotes and news about his books. The account already has more than 7000 followers. This coming Wednesday (Nov 16) Douglas Gresham (Lewis’ stepson) will be hosting a live twitter event. You can find the Twitter feed here.

Justin Bieber's Mom

Justin Bieber's mom is Tweeting Scripture as her son faces a paternity suit. Pattie Mallette, using the Twitter name StudioMama, has offered Bible verses and positive quotes such as this one, soon after news of the lawsuit came to light:

"Forgiveness in a nutshell means, 'Letting go of your right to get even.' Choose forgiveness. Be willing to be made willing to forgive."

A couple of days later, she re-tweeted her Justin's tweet:

"Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. Colossians 3:2."

NRB: Social Media Censoring Christians

The National Religious Broadcasters claims the social media are targeting Christians and censoring their viewpoints. The organization says it studied Apple, the iTunes App Store, Google, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, AT&T, Comcast and Verizon and found what it calls "institutionalized religious discrimination.” The one bright spot, according to the report, is Twitter. The social media site has shown "fairness toward Christian opinions" in its written policies. The NRB points to decision's like one by Apple to pull two iPhone apps — one created by Exodus International and another that included the text of a document called the Manhattan Declaration. According to the NRB, only these two apps were removed solely on the basis of their viewpoints on homosexuality.

Faith Popular on Facebook

A website that tracks Facebook traffic says six of the top 20 most engaging Facebook pages are related to faith. Allfacebook reports that even the new Harry Potter movie was topped by Facebook pages Jesus Daily and The Bible. The Bible was started by an Australian pastor who started by just posting daily Scripture readings. You'll also find televangelist Joyce Meyer in the top 20.

Jesus Daily is Top Page

A Facebook page called Jesus Daily had the most interactions of any page this past week: 1,950,938. It has 4,968,327 fans. The Bible came in third. See who else is on the list here.

Food Court Flash Mob

Warren Makes Top 20

Rick Warren and the Dalai Lama were the only religious figures to make Forbe's list of the top 20 most influential Twitter celebrities. Topping the list was 16-year-old singer Justin Bieber with more than 6.3 million followers. Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life , has more than 209,000 followers, putting him at number 20. Along with some personal tweets, Warren mostly offers challenges, Scripture verses, mentoring advice and encouragement to his Twitter followers. You can follow him here.

Pastors flock to Facebook, Twitter

A story from USA Today about the impact of social networks on the church. Read it here.