Archbishop Justin Welby issued “ten digital commandments” in a Q & A session on Facebook Live on July 1. “As we respond to the call on each of us to be witnesses to Jesus Christ, I encourage all of us to consider how we live our lives as witnesses online,” he said in a recent interview. “Each time we interact online we have the opportunity either to add to currents of cynicism and abuse or to choose instead to share light and grace.”
The event at British Facebook headquarters was the official launch of a Digital Charter by the Church of England, a voluntary pledge for individual Christians and local churches intended “to help make social media and the web more widely positive places for conversations to happen.” Pledgers commit to building “a more loving and generous” digital world by practices of “truth, kindness, welcome, inspiration, togetherness and safeguarding children.”
Those who interact with the Church of England’s own social media channels will also be asked to commit to a series of ten more specific “community guidelines.”
Welby urged honesty in digital communication in the Q & A session, asserting “When you put something out on social media, put the truth out. There is no such thing as an alternative fact. There is truth. There is absolute truth. There is opinion and there is truth.”
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Mark Michael
The Rev. Mark Michael is editor-in-chief of The Living Church. An Episcopal priest, he has reported widely on global Anglicanism, and also writes about church history, liturgy, and pastoral ministry.
