Facebook Censors Picture of Jesus as Shocking, Sensational, or Violent
Facebook rejected an ad from a Catholic university in Ohio last week because it included a depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Franciscan University — located in Steubenville — reported that Facebook informed the school its ad ran afoul of the company’s content policy, which does not allow “shocking, sensational, and excessively violent” material.
The college posted an image to its Twitter page that it says Facebook rejected. The ad does not look particularly violent, showing just a scant amount of blood on Christ’s hands and in his side.
An ad we placed was rejected by Facebook today for content that is “shocking, sensational, and excessively violent.”
We must agree with them. https://t.co/Jrf4A9W2Tm pic.twitter.com/uiijuSfXgn
— Franciscan University (@FranciscanU) March 30, 2018
The school wrote a blog piece explaining, “The San Damiano Cross. Jesus in glory, reigning from his cruciform throne. This is what the monitors at Facebook consider excessively violent, sensational, and shocking.”
The school agreed that the crucifixion was an act of violence and truly sensational in nature.
“(I)t was certainly excessively violent: a man scourged to within an inch of his life, nailed naked to a cross and left to die, all the hate of all the sin in the world poured out its wrath upon his humanity,” according to the Franciscan.
“It was the most sensational action in history: man executed his God,” the university added.
The college quoted one a passage from the Bible to convey the importance of the matter: Isaiah 53:3.
The verse reads, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
The scriptural text continues, describing the scourging Christ received as payment for humanity’s sins.
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed,” the passage says. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
The vivid depiction of the brutality of the cross, and the stripes Jesus bore, is found in the blockbuster 2004 film “The Passion of The Christ.”
The filmmakers quote the same Isaiah 53 verse in “The Passion.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIS0IjLIjDc
The movie took in over $612 million at the box office worldwide and remains the highest grossing R-rated film in United States history.
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