Complacency

LIKE IF YOU THINK CHILD ABUSE IS WRONG
"Like if you would help this child, it can't hurt!" 


Headings and posts like these are blowing up news feeds on facebook. While these are (hopefully) genuine and are better than supporting something like child abuse, I think that there is a lot of harm that posts like these can do. 
Posts like these allow people to distance themselves from the real problem. By "liking" whatever it may be, they believe that they have made some difference in the world. All it takes is a click. There's no pain, no suffering, no hardship in that. People don't need to get there hands dirty, or so they're being told. All these posts are doing is making people believe that they can do less than they already are in order to make a difference; they're being rewarded for being lazy.
Think about it this way; how do you think an abuse victim would feel if all you could say you did for them was, "oh, don't worry, I liked a post that was against what happened to you"?


And then there are the posts that read something like, "Like in 3 seconds if you believe God is real!" At first, I didn't really have a problem with these. Nothing wrong with people showing their faith over the internet, if they're not shoving it down others' throats. But then I realized that the same problem exists with these posts; people are being taught that all they need to do is like a picture on facebook in order to do their religious duty for the day. 


Finally, the most extreme and (to me, at least) the most offensive. There are posts that state, "Like this in 3 seconds, and God will do a miracle for you." I need to make my point clear: I am NOT saying that God cannot do a miracle through technology, or that He could somehow work through your actions on facebook to bless someone. I am saying, though, that expecting God to do a miracle for you because of your actions, be it liking a post on facebook or only doing "righteous" things, is absolutely wrong. God's grace, by definition, does not depend on our actions. This is good news, though, because if God's grace did depend on our actions, we would all be in trouble.