“Have you met my friend?” A question asked too often at malls in the Midwest yet now, it carries a totally different meaning in the post-Facebook world. Muslim and Christian Evangelist of all shades and colors, who includes you: early Sunday morning door-knocking Jehovah’s witness, have been making our life more colorful by stopping the normal flow of our lives at malls, schools, and even at our own home with attempts to salvage our souls. Now they have gone digital and with a zeal.

The Holy Book in my right and a mouse in the left?

The mating of religion and social media seems like a perfect match but is it? Let me extrapolate; Evangelists are always striving to save as many people as they can, why else would they go to the depth of the Amazon spending decades trying to convert some reclusive tribe. Therefore, tools that enable them to reach a wider audience would surely be of an interest to them. The internet is one of those tools, and social media is definitely where the people are at. So in recent years, we have been seeing many examples “religious” people using social networks to further their cause. Popular ministers such as Rick Warren and Joel Osteen have about 30,000 followers each. You can even find people as important as His Holiness on the web.

The Muslim’s won’t be outdone either!

Christians aren’t the only faith group embracing social media; all of them are. If you went to the Middle East Island in Second Life last week you would have been greeted by this lovely invitation.

Invitation To The Lecture

This is an invitation to a lecture presented by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, they are the same people that banned cats, dogs and the color red. The lecture commemorated Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Muslims, and encouraged the denizens to bask in the holiness of the month. The community that is hosting the lecture in their own virtual estate proudly boasts being able to “revert” 7 people from the United States to Islam when they visited the mosques. Online evangelism is hardly as passive as this lecture makes it seem! Religious people are taking a trick out of their playbook and being more proactive in their activities in the virtual world. So instead of waiting for people with similar interests to flock to their virtual Meccas, they are going out soliciting con(re)verts.

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