Jesus: Twitter Is a Waste of Time

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Annoyed by non-believers micro-blogging their hourly moods, eating, and exercise habits?

Thank God, Gospelr just solved that messy societal problem for you. And what do you know, Christians are just as boring as everyone else.

A quick scan of Tweets on Gospelr, the Christian Twitter knockoff, reveals such minutiae as:

Adrian:

 

“I had an awesome night at the KPC men’s group here in Rogers.”

 

 

and

Jesustxtswithu:

 

“Checking out Gospelr, I must say glad to finally be able to “follow” people who Follow Him. Greetings <3.”

 

 

Jesustxtswithu’s sentiment is, of course, the ostensible reason for the site to exist. But the thing about following people who follow Jesus is that, much like people who don’t, they mostly post things like:

 

 

“I have a newly opened bag of coffee on my bookshelf at work. The aroma of the ground coffee is tempting me to brew another pot.”

 

 

Christians have always promoted sites dedicated to Christians and the “Christian lifestyle.” Faith-based Internet users can search and edit Christian Wikipedia, the Christian version of Wikipedia. There’s even Xianz, “the Faith Based MySpace.”

There’s an obvious reason for this. It actually makes a good deal of sense for Christian singles, for instance, wary of the pre-marital, homosexual, or just casual sex endorsed by many secular dating sites, to attempt to guide their dating life using Christian alternatives like ChristianCafe or ChristianMingle.

But does Twitter really need a Christian alternative? YouTube (hence ChristianTube)—makes more sense. But until BangR really does exist or boring Tweets become a sin, Christians are safe with secular Twitter.
—Daniel Luzer

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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