PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND THE NIGERIAN BAPTIST PASTORS: CHALLENGES AND POSSIBLE WAYS OUT

Abstract

Any society that will be healthy and growing positively must embrace peaceful coexistence. The advent of the Internet has metamorphosed the modern world from an analogue world to a digital one where technological tools play significant roles, and especially the emergence of social media has greatly transformed how people communicate worldwide. Social media is changing the way faith-based organisations operate in this world, and stakeholders (especially church pastors) in the Nigerian Baptist Convention have been using the Internet generally and social media in their ministries, especially in promoting peaceful coexistence among their church members and other people in the society. However, pastors in particular and other stakeholders are facing many challenges using social media in their ministries and other endeavours in life, especially in promoting peaceful coexistence in their society. This paper aims to highlight some of these challenges discovered through semi-structured interviews of some pastors and, as corroborated by some scholars, suggest some possible ways out of these challenges. Among the recommendations of this paper is that pastors should be proactive in using social media despite the many challenges that accompany it in promoting peaceful coexistence not only among their church members in particular but also among people generally in the society. KEYWORDS: peaceful coexistence, social media, Nigerian Baptist pastors, challenges of social media